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OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


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EARLHAM 


Earlham 

Percy  Lubbock 

Author  of  The  Craft  of  Fiction 


Jonathan  Cape 
Eleven  Gower  Street  London 


First  'Published  1922. 
tAU  Ifjghts  %j served 


College 
Library 

CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I. 

Indoors        

I 

11. 

In  the  Garden     .... 

•      99 

III. 

Outside  and  Beyond  . 

.     179 

1181650 


EARLHAM 


EARLHAM 


I:  INDOORS 

I 
THE  slightest  turn  of  memory  takes  me  back  at 
any  time  to  Earlham,  to  the  big  sunny  hall  where 
we  used  to  assemble  for  morning  prayers.  The 
shallow  staircase  descended  on  one  side,  by  the 
great  front-door.  Opposite  to  it  another  door 
opened  to  the  garden,  and  through  two  wide 
windows,  tangled  with  roses  and  vines,  the  sun- 
shine welled  into  the  house.  The  hall  was  broad 
and  square,  rather  bare  of  furniture;  against  the 
walls  there  were  seats,  velveted  and  fringed,  once 
of  a  strong  old  crimson,  but  now  faded  away  into 
soft  rose-leaf  colours  under  the  suns  of  many 
summers;  there  was  a  round  table,  where  our 
grandfather  sat  with  his  large  Bible.  At  prayer- 
time  there  were  also  benches,  set  out  in  rows,  for 
the  servants  who  came  filing  in  through  a  swing- 
door  in  one  corner.  First  the  stout  little  bright- 
eyed  cook,  whose  place  was  next  to  the  garden-door 
— she  carefully  shut  it  against  the  dewy  morning 
air  if  it  happened  to  stand  open ;  then  the  rest  of 
the  household  in  due  order.  It  struck  us  as  an 
imposing  procession ;  from  our  red  seats  under  the 
windows  we  looked  across  and  watched  it  streaming 
and  streaming  through  the  swing-door,  from  the 
back-region  of  the  house. 

I  B 


E ARLH AM 

Prayers  began  with  an  unaccompanied  hymn. 
Our  grandmother,  standing  before  the  wide  chim- 
ney, struck  into  the  first  notes,  with  a  httle  toss 
of  her  lace-capped  head — ^hfted  up  her  singularly 
sweet  and  resonant  voice,  and  the  rest  of  us  followed 
in  unison.  She  sang,  in  her  old  age,  with  a  voice  as 
fresh  as  a  girl's,  soaring  and  pealing  with  perfect 
ease ;  and  her  voice  had  a  quality  that  I  never  seem 
to  have  heard  in  another,  clear  and  vivid  and 
plangent,  like  some  kind  of  silver- wired  harp.  She 
soared  into  the  melody  quite  at  random,  with  no 
thought  of  the  pitch ;  and  sometimes  it  was  a  trying 
one  for  the  congregation,  and  after  the  first  verse 
she  would  cry  "  A  little  lower,"  and  start  the  second 
verse  in  a  more  tenable  key.  She  sang  from  the 
heart,  and  the  words  of  the  hymn  (soundly  evan- 
gelical) floated  upon  the  melody,  dominating  it, 
using  it,  so  that  the  tune  became  a  real  accompani- 
ment to  the  words.  Our  repertory  was  not  greatly 
varied;  but  often  and  often  as  the  same  familiar 
song  was  repeated — "  Hark  my  soul,"  perhaps,  or 
"  Jesu  stand  among  us  " — she  would  utter  the 
words  of  praise  and  thanksgiving  with  a  thrill,  a 
radiant  conviction,  as  though  she  made  them  her 
own  for  the  first  time. 

Meanwhile  our  grandfather  sat  at  his  roimd  table, 
one  hand  propping  the  bald  dome  of  his  forehead, 
the  other  arm  embracing  the  big  Bible  that  lay 
before  him.  He  took  no  part  in  the  hymn,  he 
waited;  and  when  we  were  seated  he  read  the 
chapter  over  which  he  had  been  brooding.  And 
then  there  was  a  pause,  and  we  settled  ourselves 
anew,  and  a  tract  of  time  opened  before  us  that 

2 


INDOORS 

seemed  very  long  indeed;  it  had  no  measurable 
length,  like  a  hymn  or  a  chapter,  for  it  depended 
on  our  grandfather  alone.  There  was  first  a  com- 
mentary upon  the  passage  he  had  read ;  he  talked 
of  it,  I  suppose  he  would  explain  and  expound  it ; 
but  what  do  I  know? — it  was  a  time  that  passed 
for  me  in  a  methodical  scrutiny  of  the  assembly,  our 
dear  and  well-known  friends  of  the  household, 
ranged  on  their  benches,  our  uncles  and  cousins  on 
the  red  settees.  Presently  the  arm  that  embraced 
the  Bible  began  slowly,  slowly  to  close  it,  and  the 
exposition  was  at  an  end,  and  we  knelt ;  and  then 
there  was  nothing  to  do  but  to  wait,  helping  oneself 
out  with  a  little  rhythmical  fidgeting. 

Our  grandfather,  fervently,  appealingly,  lyrically, 
delivered  a  long  improvisation  of  prayer.  All  of 
it  is  lost  to  me,  save  for  an  occasional  landmark 
that  I  could  recognize  and  appreciate  as  it  passed ; 
such  were  topical  points,  special  invocations  on 
behalf  of  members  of  the  family,  often  ourselves, 
who  had  just  arrived  or  were  about  to  depart. 
Otherwise  it  is  all  vague ;  but  I  can  hear  the  warm, 
mild  old  voice  rising  and  falling  with  intonations 
like  an  autumn  wind — or  like  the  chant,  as  it 
strikes  me  now,  of  a  minstrel  of  the  family  roof-tree, 
a  voice  soaring  and  sinking  in  sUghtly  melancholy 
cadences,  while  it  lingers  over  a  half -extemporized, 
half -traditional  lay.  It  was  always  a  wonder  to  us 
— we  had  no  other  reflection  upon  the  matter — that 
our  grandfather  could  uplift  his  eloquence  afresh 
on  every  morning  of  the  year,  with  never  a  lapse 
or  a  hesitation ;  but  it  ran  on  lines  long  established, 
I  imagine,  as  the  eloquence  of  a  bard  over  the  glories 

3 


E ARLH AM 

of  the  past.  It  was  certainly  in  its  manner  the  voice 
of  poetry.  The  minutes  lengthened;  and  at  last 
the  voice  rose  in  a  familiar  climax  and  fell  on  the 
words  (always  the  same)  "  We  ask  it — in  the  name 
of —  "  and  presently  we  were  all  joining  in  the 
Lord's  Prayer,  a  goodly  volume  of  sound,  with  the 
fervour  of  tension  relieved.  A  last  blessing,  a  pause, 
and  the  stir  of  life  began  again. 

2 

In  due  course  the  genial  red-bearded  butler 
pounded  the  gong,  and  breakfast  was  ready  in  the 
big  outlying  dining-room.  That  was  a  room  that 
had  been  added  some  generations  before,  when  the 
house  was  already  venerable ;  it  was  built  out  at  an 
angle  to  the  old  body  of  the  house,  and  it  had  a 
bow-window  at  one  end,  facing  into  the  flower-beds 
on  the  edge  of  the  great  lawn,  and  other  windows 
looking  over  the  side-lawn,  to  the  west,  and  down 
the  slope  of  the  park  to  the  river.  Mirth-making, 
free-tongued  parties  were  constantly  seen  round  the 
long  table ;  a  child,  squeezing  and  craning  between 
two  elders  after  grapes  and  peaches,  would  be 
amazed  and  enchanted  by  the  light  jesting  brilhance 
that  played  round  the  company.  Indeed  the  family 
of  our  grandparents  was  rich  in  its  vein  of  jovial 
comedy.  Our  uncles  were  terribly  amusing,  so  free 
with  each  other,  so  wicked  with  their  parents.  One 
could  stare  and  listen ;  and  I  remember  the  heady 
feeling  of  importance  when  one  was  personally  ad- 
dressed, and  perhaps  the  hot  confusion  when  the 
laugh  turned  upon  oneself. 

They    were    mornings    of    perfect    and    lovely 

4 


INDOORS 

romance,  and  well  we  knew  it  at  the  time.  Earlham 
days  were  holidays,  Earlham  was  the  wonder  of  the 
world.  And  indeed  it  was  a  beautiful  old  house, 
red  and  mellow,  spacious,  sun-bathed.  There  were 
gables  of  flint  and  brick  with  a  date  on  them,  1642, 
which  I  suppose  marked  the  earliest  core  of  the 
building.  But  later  on,  perhaps  in  the  reign  of 
Queen  Anne,  the  older  building  had  been  all  but 
swallowed  up  in  a  house  with  a  big  garden-front, 
to  the  south,  and  rows  of  high  sash-windows,  and 
two  projecting  wings  to  the  north  that  reached  out 
and  enclosed  you  as  you  arrived,  as  you  drove  up  in 
the  family  carriage,  palpitating  with  excitement,  to 
the  semi-circle  of  steps  before  the  front-door.  The 
carriage  made  a  sweep  and  a  curve,  and  the  coach- 
man on  the  box  seized  the  handle  of  a  bell  that 
hung  on  the  wall  of  the  house,  at  the  right  height 
for  his  hand — seized  it  as  the  carriage  swept  round, 
pealed  it,  and  the  big  door  was  already  opening  as 
we  drew  up  at  the  steps.  Our  grandfather  would 
be  standing  there,  tall  and  gaunt  and  benevolent ; 
that  was  how  the  visit  to  Earlham  began. 

The  north  front  had  been  plastered  and  painted 
a  buff -white,  long  ago ;  but  elsewhere  the  red  brick 
was  untouched,  only  the  vines  and  roses  and  jessa- 
mine clung  and  scrambled  where  they  would.  Late 
in  the  eighteenth  century  there  had  been  more 
building,  and  the  dining-room  stood  out  into  the 
garden,  as  I  have  said ;  and  also  to  the  west,  where 
there  was  the  view  down  to  the  river,  another  wing 
was  thrown  forward,  with  a  drawing-room  that 
faced  away  to  the  sunset,  and  to  the  glint  of  water, 
and  to  the  round  tower  of  Colney  church  on  the 

5 


E ARLHAM 

rising  ground  beyond,  a  mile  away.  So  the  house 
had  gradually  elbowed  itself  into  convenient  roomi- 
ness. The  back-regions,  too,  through  the  swing- 
door,  were  extremely  interesting.  A  flagged  passage 
led  away  to  the  back-door,  and  there  before  it  was  a 
large  green  of  rough  grass,  and  round  it  all  the 
outlying  buildings  that  in  old  days  had  been  part 
of  the  needful  economy  of  the  place,  the  store- 
houses, the  bakery,  the  brew-house.  In  one  corner, 
under  a  sort  of  brick  cloister,  was  the  pump — a 
great  beam  that  revolved,  and  that  for  half  an  hour 
every  morning  was  dragged  round  and  round  by  a 
white  horse,  with  a  measured  thumping  and  thud- 
ding. By  the  back-door  was  the  kitchen-window, 
and  the  kitchen  was  a  noble  room.  From  within 
the  house  you  approached  it  by  another  flagged 
passage,  out  of  which  a  side-door  opened — or  rather 
it  was  always  locked,  till  the  rosy  cook  drew  a  key 
from  her  pocket,  opened  the  door,  and  there  was  a 
waft  of  sweet  dry  spiciness  from  her  stores,  while 
she  searched  among  them  for  something  to  content 
us. 

The  house  was  various,  endless,  inexhaustible. 
Mounting  the  stairs  again  (after  how  many  years  ?), 
the  shallow  stairs  that  rose  from  the  hall,  I  hardly 
know  which  way  to  turn — here,  perhaps,  on  the 
first  landing,  at  a  door  which  takes  me  into  the 
"  ante-room,"  I  suppose  originally  the  chief  parlour. 
It  was  high,  clear,  formal,  with  the  air  of  a  room 
little  used ;  there  was  not  an  object  on  a  table,  not 
a  blue  china  cup  on  a  cabinet,  that  had  shifted  its 
place  in  fifty  years.  But  at  the  end  of  the  long  room 
was  a  small  extension,  a  projection  in  a  bow- window, 

6 


INDOORS 

that  was  in  familiar  use.  A  cool  green  light  fell 
through  the  windows,  which  looked  northward  into 
an  avenue  of  great  limes,  murmurous  and  odorous 
in  summer  noondays ;  and  our  grandmother  would 
gather  us  to  this  end  of  the  room,  the  coolest 
retreat  in  the  house,  in  the  heat  of  the  long  brilliant 
day.  The  space  in  the  bow- window  was  raised  Hke  a 
dais  above  the  level  of  the  room ;  there  was  a  ^reen 
velvet  window-seat,  and  a  huge  old  Chinese  jar, 
standing  on  the  floor,  holding  relics  of  ancestral 
lavender  and  rose-leaves.  There  on  the  window- 
seat  our  grandmother  drew  us  round  her  and  read 
to  us,  sweetly  and  playfully,  ancient  moral  anec- 
dotes, stories  out  of  tiny  little  volumes  that  she 
cherished — or  Bible-stories,  if  it  were  Sunday.  She 
read  with  a  charming,  trilling  liveliness,  dropping 
into  soft  mysterious  undertones,  breaking  out  again 
with  silvery  merriment — she  had  her  own  way  in 
everything  she  did. 

She  loved  the  green  window-seat  and  the  rustling 
shadow  of  the  limes.  As  she  grew  old  and  older, 
she  used  to  sit  there  in  the  window  for  long  hours, 
alone  in  the  summer  evening,  till  the  light  faded 
away.  She  sat  without  book  or  work,  drinking  in 
the  twiht  fragrance,  communing  in  her  mind — ^with 
what? — with  the  thought  of  many  beloved  dead, 
"whom  she  had  lost  and  mourned,  and  with  the  joy 
of  reunion  with  them  that  she  saw  near  at  hand  now, 
in  a  very  few  years.  Her  mind  was  there,  more  and 
more.  As  the  evening  darkened  she  seemed,  sitting 
in  the  window,  to  have  all  but  passed  already  into 
the  light  she  awaited ;  it  shone  in  her  face,  I  remem- 
ber, as  she  spoke  of  it ;  I  remember  vividly  her  look 

7 


EARLHAM 

as  she  once  exclaimed,  in  sudden  uncontrollable 
wonder,  "  What  will  it  be  ? — what  will  it  be  like  ?  " 
So  close  to  it  she  felt  herself  to  be,  so  near  the  incon- 
ceivable and  ineffable;  the  wonder  of  anticipation 
held  and  filled  her. 

3 

She  liked  us  to  love  the  old  house,  as  we  did ;  she 

was  very  tender  and  affectionate  with  it,  as  though 
the  house  were  a  kind  old  nurse,  faithful  and  worn, 
with  whom  we  must  be  gentle.  She  would  lay  her 
hand  on  a  wall,  a  panel,  a  window-sill,  with  a  touch 
that  seemed  to  stroke  it  softly;  "the  poor  old 
place,"  she  said,  with  a  kind  of  bantering  tenderness. 
She  lived  there  for  nearly  fifty  years,  and  her  many 
children  grew  up  there.  Nothing  was  ever  changed. 
The  house  had  been  all  new-furnished  when  she 
went  to  live  there,  a  few  years  after  her  first 
marriage,  and  so  it  remained.  Wandering  through 
the  rooms  again,  at  this  late  day,  I  suppose  I  can 
note  how  inharmoniously,  unsuitably,  the  house  had 
been  treated;  there  was  little  or  nothing  in  the 
dressing  and  fitting  of  the  rooms  that  might  seem 
to  accord  with  the  grace  of  age,  to  suggest  a  memory 
akin  to  the  house.  The  house  had  the  memory  of  a 
high  style,  there  was  none  in  its  furnishing.  But 
crimson  had  faded  to  rose,  green  to  the  colour  of 
autumn  grasses  and  moss,  and  in  the  drawing-room 
(through  the  mahogany  door  from  the  ante-room) 
the  yellow  satin  of  the  window-hangings  had  a 
faint  gleam  of  old  amber.  Three  windows  there 
were,  slightly  bowed  out  to  the  west;  and  we  are 
now,  you  understand,  on  the  first  floor  of  the  house. 

8 


INDOORS 

Through  one  of  the  three  drawing-room  windows, 
that  to  the  right  hand,  there  was  an  unexpected 
ghmpse.  A  rather  dense  shrubbery  or  small  wood 
of  oaks  stood  in  that  quarter,  flanking  close  against 
the  house ;  but  a  clearance  was  tunnelled  through  it 
and  kept  open,  aligned  with  this  window;  and  a 
view  appeared  there,  framed  in  greenery,  of  a  bridge, 
a  round  brick  arch,  that  spanned  the  river  down  by 
the  village.  It  made  a  neat  little  picture,  like  an  old 
drawing-master's  copy.  And  if  you  remember  a 
page  near  the  beginning  of  Lavengro,  where  Borrow 
goes  fishing  in  a  river-pool,  by  a  bridge,  and  falls 
in  with  a  handsome  Quaker  gentleman  in  a  broad 
beaver  hat,  who  mildly  rebukes  him  for  his  occupa- 
tion and  talks  to  him  of  the  Scriptures — this  is  that 
same  bridge,  the  good  Quaker  was  our  great-grand- 
father's brother,  Joseph  John  Gurney,  who  lived 
at  Earlham  before  our  grandmother's  day.  Borrow 
wandered  out  to  the  Earlham  river,  after  his  fishing, 
from  Norwich,  and  Joseph  John,  strolling  down 
through  the  park,  found  him  and  gently  catechized 
him,  and  invited  him  to  come  up  to  the  house  and 
see  his  books — where  Borrow  went,  however,  only 
in  after  years,  and  was  then  entertained  by  the  good 
man  in  a  "  low  quiet  chamber,  whose  one  window, 
shaded  by  a  gigantic  elm,  looks  down  the  slope 
towards  the  pleasant  stream";  and  it  must  be 
admitted  that  there  was  no  such  room  in  the  house, 
for  any  "  gigantic  elm  "  in  the  garden  at  all.  But 
Borrow  fished  in  the  pool  and  talked  to  Joseph  John 
and  visited  the  house,  no  doubt — the  "  Earl's 
Home,"  as  he  calls  it ;  and  this  was  his  bridge  that 
appeared  in  its  round  frame  of  leafy  foreground. 

9 


EARLHAM 

Joseph  John  was  a  handsome  old  scholar  and 
philanthropist  and  man  of  business,  mildly  literary. 
His  portrait  remained  at  Earlham,  a  head  of  dis- 
tinction, with  kind  lucid  eyes.  More  interesting 
was  a  picture  that  hung  in  the  drawing-room,  a 
large  water-colour,  in  a  frame  with  folding  doors 
to  it — a  portrait  by  Richmond  of  a  Quaker  lady, 
old  and  portly  and  immensely  majestic,  in  mob-cap 
and  flowing  robe  of  soft  brown  and  grey.  This  was 
Aunt  Fry,  sister  of  Joseph  John — Elizabeth  Fry, 
missionary  of  the  prison-house,  recalled  and  com- 
memorated still  for  her  fruitful  works.  She  was 
much  more  commanding,  much  more  resolute,  I 
judge,  than  her  brother;  she  looked  as  though  she 
had  accomphshed  her  good  works  with  a  high  hand ; 
and  mixed  with  legitimate  pride  in  her  fame,  there 
survived  in  the  family  some  tradition  that  she  was 
more  interested  in  her  grand  European  activities 
than  in  her  nearest  and  homeliest  duties.  She  had 
lived  at  Earlham  in  her  youth,  with  her  many 
brothers  and  sisters;  and  she  became  a  character 
that  perhaps,  to  her  family  circle,  seemed  strangely 
public;  and  in  our  grandmother's  voice,  as  she 
spoke  to  us  of  Aunt  Fry,  there  might  be  a  hint  of 
such  an  idea,  quickly  covered  with  admiring  venera- 
tion. 

Aunt  Fry  hung  in  a  corner  of  the  room,  looking 
very  stately.  But  I  cannot  think  of  her  just  yet, 
for  my  eye  has  been  caught  elsewhere.  Near  the 
windows  stood  the  "  instrument,"  a  grand  piano  in 
golden  satin-wood,  and  there  the  assault  of  memory 
is  strong  and  manifold.  It  was  a  ghostly  piano; 
the  music  came  softly  tinkling  out  of  it  with  a 

10 


INDOORS 

muffled  sound,  as  though  it  were  swathed  in  veils  of 
time.  You  could  not  stir  it  up  or  rouse  it  to  more 
than  a  far-away  hum  and  murmur;  thumping 
and  strumming  had  no  effect,  it  only  responded  with 
the  same  low  shadowy  voice.  Our  grandmother, 
we  believed,  used  to  play  it  and  sing  songs  when  she 
was  young;  in  our  day  she  never  touched  it,  and 
her  voice  was  only  heard  in  hymn-singing  at  prayers 
and  in  church.  But  yes,  once  I  heard  her  sing  out 
to  the  sound  of  the  piano,  as  with  an  echo  of  her 
youth.  Somebody  was  touching  the  keys  and 
turning  over  a  book  of  old  songs,  sentimental  old 
ballads  mostly,  but  he  found  some  music  there  of 
Handel  and  Arne.  Presently,  turning  another  page, 
he  played  a  few  notes  of  a  song,  and  named  it,  and 
asked  our  grandmother  if  she  had  ever  sung  it; 
and  as  she  moved  about  the  room  she  turned  and 
shook  out  the  first  phrase  of  the  song,  suddenly, 
with  her  bright  harp- tones — "  Nita,  Juanita!  " 
The  phrase  rang  across  the  room,  it  is  still  in  my 
ears;  it  was  a  flash  of  old  times,  when  the  voice 
of  the  piano  was  young  and  clear  too,  perhaps. 
The  piano  had  aged  and  lost  its  voice ;  but  to  those 
ringing  notes  of  "  Nita,  Juanita  "  it  might  have 
responded,  finding  the  tone  of  its  youth  again. 

It  couldn't  do  that ;  but  still  it  tinkled  industri- 
ously, and  the  children  gazed  into  its  gaping  jaws 
to  watch  the  dance  of  the  little  black  hammers.  We 
sang  all  the  sentimental  ballads,  The  Captive 
Knight,  The  Hebrew  Maiden  to  her  Christian  Lover, 
Oh  Pilot  'tis  a  Fearful  Night,  many  more.  Our 
grandmother,  hearing  us,  would  come  in  and  stand 
listening  for  a  moment,  nodding  and  smiling  to  us. 

II 


E ARLHAM 

"  Ah,  those  droll  old  songs!  "  she  would  say.  But 
she  was  not  sentimental  herself;  she  looked  back 
lightly  and  gaily  to  the  far  past,  I  think.  She  lived 
vividly  in  the  present,  full  of  quick  impulses  and 
melting  sympathies.  I  have  spoken  of  her  as  I  saw 
her  just  now,  sitting  in  the  twilight;  but  that  is  a 
picture  which  only  belongs  to  the  last  years,  the 
very  last.  Till  then  did  we  ever  see  her  sitting  still, 
resting,  waiting  ?  She  was  always  in  movement,  she 
had  remembered  someone  she  wished  to  see,  some- 
thing she  had  forgotten,  something  she  had  lost. 
She  smiled  and  waved  to  us,  seeing  us  happily 
occupied,  and  was  gone. 

Nobody  ever  "  sat  "  in  the  drawing-room  by  day, 
there  was  no  company  there  till  the  evening.  And 
while  the  company  was  at  dinner,  one  of  the  children 
would  follow  our  well-beloved  Rose,  the  house-maid, 
as  she  went  her  round — first  to  the  bed-rooms,  to 
fold  away  the  counterpanes  and  turn  down  the 
sheets  of  the  huge  four-posters,  then  to  the  drawing- 
room,  to  set  the  chairs  and  brighten  the  lamps,  and 
if  there  was  a  dinner-party  to  open  the  "  instru- 
ment "  and  light  the  candles.  "  There's  company 
to-night,  they'll  be  having  some  music."  We  pre- 
pared the  room  for  them  and  whisked  out  of  the 
way ;  Rose  somehow  made  a  drama  of  the  proceed- 
ing. Bright  and  merry  and  handsome  she  was, 
carrying  her  head  high — a  charming  figure,  as  we 
slipped  round  the  turn  of  the  stairs,  hearing  the 
voices  of  the  company  as  they  issued  confusedly 
from  the  dining-room,  away  in  the  distance. 


12 


INDOORS 


4 
Lingering  still  by  the  drawing-room  window,  I 

come  on  another  picture.  It  is  of  a  child,  who  sits 
there  in  the  window-seat,  gazing,  gaping,  while 
someone — a  kind  lady,  unknown — tells  him  a  story. 
There  was  some  kind  of  tea-party  proceeding  in  the 
room,  apparently — which  was  very  unusual,  and  I 
guess  it  may  have  been  a  missionary  meeting,  with 
an  address  and  a  collection,  and  tea  to  follow.  Any- 
how there  were  people  crowding  and  talking  around ; 
but  the  child  was  hardly  aware  of  them,  he  was  all 
eyes  and  open  mouth  at  the  kind  lady's  story.  Not 
a  word  of  it  do  I  remember,  save  only  that  the 
climax  was  a  house  on  fire,  I  suppose  with  a  gallant 
rescue  of  the  inmates.  The  story-teller  sat  beside  me 
in  the  window-seat,  her  friendly  eyes  in  mine ;  and 
she  must  have  felt  pleased  at  the  success  of  her  tale. 
It  was  surely  suitable  and  interesting,  the  very  story 
for  a  child — ^no  doubt  she  had  told  it  to  scores.  I 
wonder  who  she  was ;  she  Uttle  suspected  how  I  was 
to  pay  for  that  story.  The  fiery  house,  the  flames 
shooting  from  the  windows,  must  have  happened  to 
press  upon  some  sensitive  spot  in  a  small  imagina- 
tion, straining  or  wounding  it.  The  memory  became 
a  dread,  a  monstrosity,  that  haunted  me  for  long — 
for  years,  as  it  seems  to  me  now.  It  began  with  that 
session  in  the  window-seat,  in  the  greyish  evening 
light,  when  a  kind  stranger  took  the  trouble  to 
entertain  a  child. 

It  began  there,  and  it  returned,  night  after  night, 
in  the  room  where  the  children  slept.  That  indeed 
was  an  odd  and  disconcerting  room  for  the  calmest 

13 


EARLHAM 

imagination.  The  Eleven-sided  Room — so  it  was 
called,  and  there  was  no  doubt  about  its  eleven 
distinct  walls  and  angles ;  we  often  counted  them. 
It  might  have  represented  the  space  which  the 
builder  happened  to  find  upon  his  hands,  when  he 
had  provided  the  other  rooms  in  their  order.  It  was 
full  of  slopes  and  projections,  recesses,  yawning 
cupboards  Uke  caves.  An  extemporized  wooden 
staircase  had  been  pierced  to  the  nursery  below; 
and  there  was  another  door  that  opened  on  to  a 
deserted  and  resonant  upper  landing,  and  there  were 
more  doors  that  concealed  strange  alcoves;  and 
between  them  you  felt  utterly  exposed  and  power- 
less. You  could  not  watch  them  all,  you  could  not 
be  on  your  guard  in  all  directions  at  once.  A  candle 
on  the  mantel-piece  gave  just  enough  light  to  show 
how  dark  the  corners  were.  The  long  hours  were 
urgent  with  horror — surely  half  the  night  had  gone, 
surely  it  must  be  near  the  dawn ;  yet  still  there  was 
the  sound  of  plates  and  forks  and  voices  in  the 
nursery  below — far  away,  in  the  world  of  company 
and  light,  at  the  foot  of  the  wooden  staircase — and 
our  nurse  was  still  at  her  supper,  gossiping  with 
our  grandmother's  dear  affectionate  maid.  Down 
there  was  security  and  peace,  and  tender  hearts, 
moreover,  that  would  have  been  lavished  to  protect 
and  comfort  a  frightened  child,  if  only — if  only  they 
could  be  made  to  understand.  But  alone  up  there 
among  the  shadows,  how  could  you  make  them 
understand?  Where  could  you  begin  with  any 
explanation  ?  It  was  hopeless ;  but  perhaps  there 
were  feints  and  ruses  that  might  bring  one  of  them 
up  the  wooden  stairs,  and  a  few  minutes  of  safe 

14 


INDOORS 

company  might  be  secured  in  that  way.  Sometimes 
it  could  be  managed,  but  not  often,  and  not  for 
long.  Silence,  solitude  must  be  faced,  and  the  blaze 
of  that  horrible  house,  with  the  flames  leaping 
from  its  window-sockets  as  soon  as  one's  eyes  were 
shut.  Hours  and  hours  dragged  on,  the  dawn  de- 
layed. 

The  soft  roo-hooing  of  pigeons  on  the  roof,  a  great 
splash  of  sun  slanting  through  the  window,  life  and 
freedom  and  daylight  were  all  around  one  in  a 
moment.  It  was  another  room,  another  world  in 
the  morning.  The  caverns  and  recesses  were  stimu- 
lating and  amusing;  the  Eleven-sided  Room  was 
unique,  entirely  deHcious.  The  clean  old  smell  of 
sun-baked  woodwork  met  one  at  the  windows, 
which  were  fringed  with  green  leaves.  Bumping 
presently  down  the  stairs,  to  breakfast  in  the 
nursery  below,  one  set  forth  upon  the  illimitable  day. 
The  nursery  was  high  and  bare,  but  the  sun  filled  it. 
Only  a  four-sided  room  it  was,  like  any  other,  but 
it  had  five  doors,  five  separate  entrances.  Through 
one  of  them  we  clattered  off  along  the  passage,  when 
the  gong  boomed  for  prayers. 

5 

Our  grandfather,  infinitely  kind  and  mild,  was 
yet  not  easily  approachable.  He  was  very  tall  and 
lean ;  he  towered  above  you,  he  looked  down  from 
his  height  benignantly,  but  with  nothing  in  particu- 
lar to  say.  Under  his  high  forehead  his  eyes  were 
remote  and  cavernous ;  his  thin  cheeks  were  drawn 
together  to  the  point  of  his  chin.  He  twinkled  in 
silent  approval  and  passed  on  Uke  a  shadow;  he 

15 


EARLH AM 

seemed  to  walk  in  twilight.  He  did  not  join  the 
talkative,  sociable  party;  he  glanced  in  upon  it, 
gleaming  for  a  moment  with  appreciation,  answering 
a  gay  challenge  with  a  chuckle  and  a  word,  and 
stalked  away.  We  saw  him,  tall  and  black,  walking 
across  the  great  lawn,  not  loitering  or  pausing,  but 
like  a  practised  walker  (as  he  was),  with  a  measured 
and  regular  pace  that  was  neither  a  stride  nor  a 
stroll;  his  big  substantial  boots  rose  and  fell 
steadily,  and  he  covered  the  ground  in  surprising 
time,  without  appearing  to  hurry  himself.  Or  on 
the  lawn,  perhaps,  he  would  sometimes  pause,  to 
drive  the  point  of  his  umbrella  under  a  plantain  or  a 
dandelion.  And  then  he  was  off  on  his  three-mile 
trudge  along  the  high-road  to  Norwich,  where  in  old 
days  (before  my  memory)  he  had  been  rector  of  a 
city  parish,  and  where  many  missions  of  charity  or 
clerical  business  always  called  him. 

He  had  been  rector  of  St.  Giles's,  in  Norwich,  for 
many  years,  tramping  in  perpetually  from  Earlham 
and  out  again.  But  I  scarcely  look  back  further 
than  the  time  when  he  resigned  his  populous  cure  in 
the  city,  having  accomplished  a  great  work  there, 
and  took  instead  the  diminutive  living  of  Earlham 
itself,  with  the  village  of  Colney  that  adjoined  it. 
At  Earlham  Hall  he  had  lived  since  his  marriage  (he 
was  really  our  s^^^-grandfather),  and  now  he 
ministered  in  the  two  tiny  churches,  Earlham  and 
Colney,  turn  and  turn  about.  Living  at  the  Hall 
himself,  he  used  to  lend  his  rectory-house  to  stray 
and  stranded  missionaries — I  think  they  were 
generally  missionaries.  From  China,  from  Uganda 
they  came  and  were  harboured  in  the  pretty  old 

i6 


INDOORS 

rectory  of  Colney,  with  their  wives  and  children,  for 
the  term  of  their  hohday.  Many  threads  of  friend- 
ship radiated  from  Earlham  into  the  mission-field, 
all  round  the  world. 

But  I  cannot  write  of  our  grandfather  as  though 
I  were  telling  his  story;  I  can  only  watch  for 
gUmpses  of  him,  seizing  them  where  I  can,  and  our 
glimpses  of  him  in  those  days  appear  like  the 
passing  of  a  benevolent  shadow,  always  excepting 
the  sight  of  him  at  prayers  and  in  church.  There 
only,  I  now  see,  we  could  look  into  his  real  life; 
he  opened  his  mind  in  prayer  and  revealed  the 
ardent  emotion  upon  which  his  life  was  fed;  at 
other  times  it  was  veiled  and  withdrawn,  unsus- 
pected by  a  child.  We  did  not  approach  him 
familiarly;  though  nothing  could  seem  more 
familiar  to  me  now  than  the  sight  of  him,  as  we 
loiter  and  cluster  about  the  garden-door  after 
prayers — the  sight  of  him  passing  through  the 
chatter  and  laughter  with  a  demure,  roguish  smile, 
walking  off  in  the  sunshine  among  the  brilliant 
flower-beds  that  skirted  the  lawn,  returning 
presently  with  a  single  flower,  a  rose,  for  the  tiny 
glass  upon  his  writing-table.  ^  His  study  was  by  the 
garden-door;  loitering  outside,  we  could  see  him 
moving  within  among  the  high  book-shelves.  He 
was,  or  he  had  been,  a  student  and  a  scholar,  and  his 
room  had  a  refined,  faded,  scrupulous  look,  like  the 
college-rooms  of  an  old-fashioned  don.  Nothing 
unkempt,  nothing  haphazard;  there  was  an  air, 
rather,  of  remote  traditional  elegance,  a  kind  of 
far-away  nattiness;  in  college  rooms  of  the  old 
style,  reaching  back  beyond  the  days  of  tobacco- 

17  C 


EARLHAM 

smoke,  beyond  the  days  of  lounging  and  sprawling, 
I  have  found  sometlung  of  that  atmosphere.  A 
room  had  naturally,  Uke  its  owner,  to  be  well- 
mannered  and  trimly  appointed ;  it  was  impossible 
to  imagine  our  grandfather  in  any  but  seemly, 
orderly  surroundings. 

He  had  not,  however,  what  are  called  the  "  man- 
ners of  the  old  school " ;  he  was  not  courtly,  not 
ceremonious ;  he  was  simple  and  kind  and  grave,  as 
he  talked  to  the  stranger  at  his  table — or  talked 
not  much,  or  not  at  all,  if  the  conversation  flowed 
freely  aroimd  him.  And  indeed  it  flowed  freely  at 
that  table — can  I  recall  the  bountiful  board  in  the 
long  dining-room  without  the  crackle  of  our  uncles' 
humour,  genially  unafraid  and  unashamed  ?  Smil- 
ing discreetly  over  his  carving  at  the  head  of  the 
table,  our  grandfather  withdrew  from  the  talk,  but 
missed  none  of  it. 

Mr.  Jones,  perhaps,  or  Mr.  Smith,  reverend 
gentlemen,  bearded  and  hearty,  would  surely  be 
seated  at  that  table,  as  I  think  of  it.  There  were 
plenty  of  reverend  gentlemen  there,  doubtless  of  all 
complexions — ^but  the  beards  predominated,  the 
jovial  wagging  beards  of  evangehcal  country  clergy. 
I  wonder  whether  the  children  at  the  table,  staring 
and  listening,  absorbing  so  much  more  than  they 
knew,  may  not  have  acquired  from  these  gentry 
their  earhest  notion  of  clerical  institutions  and 
categories — simple  enough,  in  Mr.  Jones's  view.  In 
our  family  we  heard  nothing  of  the  "  church  " ;  our 
grandparents  never  used  the  word,  as  it  seems  to 
me;  "  church  "  only  meant  Earlham  church  next 
Sunday,    Colney   the   Sunday   after;  prayer   and 

.    i8 


INDOORS 

thanksgiving,  love  and  praise  were  all  the  words 
we  heard.  But  for  Mr.  Jones  and  his  like  there  was 
more ;  there  was  something  in  the  air  of  their  talk 
that  was  quite  unlike  the  air  of  Earlham.  Surely  we 
were  conscious  of  that ;  for  from  nothing  in  our  own 
circle  could  we  have  derived  a  knowledge  of  bad 
people,  wrong  and  perverted  and  dangerous — 
ritualists,  they  were  called.  Our  grandfather, 
indeed,  could  speak  sharply  about  them ;  but  these 
bad  people  would  never  have  been  spoken  of  or 
heard  of,  I  think,  but  for  Mr.  Jones  and  his  friends. 
They  spoke  of  them,  quite  readily. 

We  knew  all  about  the  rituahsts  and  their  bad 
ways,  and  the  "  High  Church  Party,"  and  so  forth ; 
but  these  matters  could  not  be  taken  over-seriously, 
where  our  uncles  made  free  with  the  talk.  I  quite 
understood  the  delicious  impudence  of  one  of  them 
(the  youngest,  the  most  shameless,  the  one  of  all 
that  company  who  was  to  vanish  first,  mourned 
untimely),  when  he  called  out  his  ribaldry  at  Mr. 
Jones  across  the  table.  I  can  clearly  see  that 
particular  greybeard — large,  jocose,  loudly  enjoying 
his  good  meal ;  from  a  neighbouring  country  parish 
he  had  lately  moved  to  some  living  at  Cromer  or 
Lowestoft.  "  Mr.  Jones,"  cried  our  uncle,  dimpling 
with  effrontery,  "  I  suppose,  now  that  you've  gone 
to  a  fashionable  church  at  the  sea-side,  you've 
become  terribly  ritualistic! "  Oh  the  gay  pug- 
nacious whoop  of  Mr.  Jones — can  you  hear  it? 
"  What,  what,  what?  What's  this?  "  "  Oh  yes, 
Mr.  Jones,  I  expect  you've  become  a  sad  Roman." 
Bursting  and  bubbling  with  rich  indignant  playful- 
ness, Mr.  Jones  snorted  and  trumpeted;  and  our 

19 


EARLHAM 

grandfather's  smile  would  broaden  as  he  carved  the 
joint. 

6 

From  the  dining-room,  from  the  company  and 
the  quahty,  the  children  would  go  bounding  into 
the  other  world,  the  domestic  household.  Racing 
along  the  flagged  passage  to  the  kitchen,  perhaps — 
or  up  the  echoing  backstairs  to  the  top  of  the  house, 
the  spacious  attics  and  landings,  store-rooms  and 
linen-presses — wherever  they  went  they  found 
delight.  All  over  the  house  there  was  the  same  free 
wash  of  light  and  air,  and  a  fragrance  of  clean  wood, 
homely  soap,  fresh  linen ;  the  upper  passages  were 
bare  and  carpetless,  full  of  echoes  in  the  long 
stretches  of  scrubbed  boards.  The  children  had  the 
right  that  only  children  possess — the  freedom  of 
both  worlds,  upstairs  and  downstairs,  the  attic  and 
the  parlour ;  at  home  with  the  merry  servants  as 
liberally  as  with  the  life  below.  Only  children  quite 
bridge  that  interval;  they  alone  live  naturally  in 
both  communities. 

The  household  community  at  Earlham  was 
brilliant  and  irresistible.  It  was  all  bright  faces, 
good  talk,  interesting  employment;  year  by  year 
we  were  gathered  in  afresh  and  welcomed  back  to  a 
world  that  seemed  never  to  know  change.  We 
dropped  into  it,  we  made  free  of  it  to  the  point  of 
being  an  embarrassment  at  times,  I  surely  think. 
If  we  were  we  never  suspected  it,  nor  had  reason  to 
do  so.  But  is  it  pleasant,  when  you  are  marshalling 
your  forces  for  the  dishing  of  a  dinner — when  you 
are  sweeping,  dusting,  washing,  mending — is  it 
pleasant,  when  you  are  busy  and  responsible,  to  be 

20 


INDOORS 

beset  by  young  idleness  in  knickerbockers,  appealed 
to,  clung  to,  danced  with  by  irresponsibility  in  a 
pinafore,  at  any  time,  all  times?  Always  busy, 
always  patient,  always  gay  and  brilliant  with  a 
sparkling  of  humour  and  originality,  that  household 
Uves  in  memory.  Let  affection,  gratitude,  admira- 
tion, be  joined  in  a  greeting  to  them. 

The  hall  (the  hall,  as  distinguished  from  the 
"  front  hall ")  was  a  fine  place,  almost  collegiate, 
with  its  long  table,  its  high  ceiling,  its  trophies  on 
the  wall.  Into  the  pantry  that  opened  from  it  a 
child  would  hardly  venture;  not  that  welcome 
would  fail,  but  because  the  world  of  the  pantry  is 
excessively  distinguished  and  experienced;  and  in 
our  attachment  to  our  admirable  friend,  the  red- 
bearded  butler,  there  is  always  mingled  a  touch  of 
dread.  Of  dread,  do  I  really  mean  ? — dread  of  our 
genial  friend  ?  WeU,  there  was  a  crisp  ironic  edge 
to  his  words  and  looks,  and  such  a  free  and  master- 
ful style  about  him  as  he  strode  through  the  hall 
(the  "  front  hall ")  with  the  plates  and  the  great 
silver  dish-covers  to  the  dining-room,  and  as  he 
drummed  on  the  gong  at  arm's  length,  with  a 
mihtary  action,  and  as  he  fired  out  of  the  pantry 
window  a  brisk  remark  (with  just  that  delightful 
suspicion  of  the  Norfolk  drawl)  to  the  coachman  or 
the  gardener  at  the  back-door.  He  was  a  man  of  the 
world,  that  was  it;  no  doubt  one  felt  very  young 
with  him.  One  grew  a  little  older,  perhaps,  in  the 
course  of  years,  and  in  unofficial  hours  he  could  be  a 
companion,  immensely  resourceful,  on  the  river,  on 
a  birds'-nesting  excursion — such  days  I  recall,  when 
we  seemed  to  move  upon  the  same  level.    But  his 

21 


E ARLH AM 

level  in  general  was  far  above  one's  own;  he  was 
a  man  of  mark.  See  him  especially  on  days  when 
he  was  in  his  element,  when  our  grandmother  was 
entertaining  a  few  of  her  friends — a  couple  of 
hundred  old  souls  from  the  work-house,  say,  or  an 
army  of  school-children,  swarming  over  the  garden ; 
he  was  in  command  and  control  of  the  situation. 
He  did  not  particularly  stoop,  indeed,  to  their 
gossip  or  sport ;  I  fancy  him  always  surveying  our 
grandmother's  poor  things  with  that  amused, 
sardonic  light  in  his  eye;  friendly,  but  briskly  so, 
without  effusion  of  sentiment.  But  the  success  of 
the  occasion  was  in  his  hands,  and  it  was  safe ;  he 
organized  and  directed,  and  nothing  that  he  handled 
went  amiss.  Every  one  who  knew  Earlham  knew 
that  man,  and  honoured  him.  He  was  the  very 
faithful  friend  of  our  grandparents. 

Round  about  the  pantry  window  and  the  back- 
door there  was  a  stir  of  life,  in  the  morning  hours,  of 
which  I  always  recapture  the  sense  in  reading  of 
country-houses  in  the  eighteenth  century,  and  the 
routine  of  the  old  isolated,  largely  self-supporting 
village-mansion.  Of  course  in  our  day  there  were 
punctual  carts  of  tradesmen  from  Norwich,  and 
the  butler  no  longer  brewed  in  the  brew-house,  and 
the  rambling  offices  and  dependencies  of  the  old 
mansion  were  mostly  deserted.  But  there  they 
still  were,  and  about  the  back-door  and  the  flagged 
lobby  with  its  benches  within,  there  seemed  to 
linger  a  tradition  of  another  century.  You  found 
something  hke  the  sociable  centre  of  a  community 
there,  you  saw  the  substructure  of  an  ancient  estab- 
lishment ;  the  tradesman's  cart  had  not  completely 

22 


INDOORS 

replaced  it  with  our  more  hand-to-mouth,  more 
improvised  manner  of  existence.  A  stable-boy 
brought  the  white  horse  to  turn  the  pump;  the 
gardener,  the  coachman,  the  keeper  tramped  in  and 
out.  Can  I  ever  have  seen  a  pedlar  undoing  a  bale 
of  finery  and  gimcrackery  at  that  door,  with  the 
maids  clustering  round  him  ?  I  have  seen  such  an 
incident,  or  heard  of  it — and  the  difference  between 
seeing  and  hearing  is  so  slight  to  a  child. 

There  certainly  was  one  clear  note  of  the  ancien 
regime  never  wanting  by  the  back-door.  The  halt, 
the  maimed,  the  needy  were  invariably  there;  no 
modern  rule  that  you  must  not  "  give  to  beggars  " 
was  ever  recognized  at  Earlham.  As  I  pass  along 
the  fresh-smelling  dark  passage  to  the  flagged  entry, 
I  seem  to  know  of  two  figures  that  I  shall  assuredly 
find  there.  One  is  the  gardener,  who  stands  before 
a  table  on  which  are  arranged  all  the  vases  and  jars 
and  flower-stands  from  all  the  sitting-rooms ;  from 
a  basket  beside  him  he  fills  them  with  an  incredible 
mixture  of  purple  dahhas,  red  geraniums,  orange 
marigolds,  plumes  of  asparagus.  And  inevitably 
behind  him,  on  the  bench  against  the  wall,  ignored 
by  the  gardener  (a  grim  man)  but  undiscouraged, 
sits  the  "  poor  man  " — who  has  walked  from  Nor- 
wich to  the  fountain  of  charity,  ever  unsealed,  that 
flows  for  all  the  needy  at  Earlham. 

I  beheve  the  good  butler,  no  sentimentalist,  used 
to  intercept  the  most  shameless,  protecting  our 
grandmother  from  the  continual  assault  upon  her 
benevolence,  so  far  as  he  could.  It  was  a  poor 
chance  for  a  professional  cadger  when  Sidell  was 
first  upon  the  scene;  he  would  come  marching 

23 


EARLHAM 

down  the  passage  with  a  bland  business-Hke  air, 
entirely  proof  against  mere  spectacular  woes.  But 
how  often  our  grandmother  was  successfully 
engaged  by  the  tale  of  misfortune,  of  honest  merit 
in  distress — it  was  always  new  to  her,  an  appealing 
and  personal  concern.  Tears  were  in  her  eyes, 
a  beautiful  lament  in  her  voice,  as  she  hstened  to 
the  tale,  and  exclaimed,  and  spoke  fervent  words  of 
sympathy  and  comfort.  Her  heart  was  reached, 
her  faith  never  knew  misgiving.  Something  could 
be  done  on  the  spot,  food  and  clothing  and  money 
at  least  were  at  hand ;  it  was  utterly  beyond  her  to 
weigh  and  calculate,  to  defer,  to  take  an  impersonal 
view.  I  easily  see  her  as  she  moves  to  the  kitchen 
window,  just  outside  the  door,  and  calls  to  the  cook 
within;  and  Mrs.  Chapman  appears,  small  and 
stout  and  rosy,  not  without  a  look  of  guarded 
disapproval  in  her  black  eyes — for  she  too  is  ready 
with  her  resentment  at  the  way  our  grandmother's 
charity  is  "  took  advantage  of."  But  there  it  is — 
it  cannot  be  helped;  the  stranger  is  fed,  tended, 
comforted,  and  departs  with  something  sohd  in  his 
pocket.  Our  grandmother  had  nothing  in  hers, 
perhaps ;  but  she  dipped  into  that  of  Mrs.  Chapman 
— whose  weekly  "  book,"  it  used  to  be  said,  was 
largely  filled  with  these  irregular  entries.  "  Poor 
man  (one  eye),  two-and-six;  poor  man  (wooden 
leg),  five  shillings;  poor  woman  (two  babies),  ten 
shillings  " — such  would  be  the  record  of  very  much 
of  the  housekeeping  at  Earlham. 

Let  us  beheve  that  there  were  many  more  grate- 
ful and  encouraged  spirits,  at  the  end  of  it  all,  than 
there  were  confirmed  impostors  and  wastrels.    The 

24 


INDOORS 

great  glow  of  devoted  affection  that  our  grand- 
mother created  around  her,  during  half  a  century  at 
Earlham,  was  a  gift  to  life  that  cannot  be  measured. 
But  there  were  impostors  in  plenty;  they  readily 
trod  the  road  to  Earlham ;  and  if  ever  one  of  them 
was  detected  and  unmasked,  our  grandmother's 
sorrowful  surprise  and  consternation  were  intense. 
The  poor  man  with  the  wooden  leg,  out  of  work 
through  no  fault  of  his  own,  with  his  children  half- 
starving,  had  turned  out  to  be — to  be  naughty,  she 
would  say;  "  that  naughty  man  "  was  her  severest 
phrase;  her  heaviest  condemnation  was  her 
wounded  tenderness  and  disappointment.  I 
suppose  she  was  often  disappointed ;  but  each  time 
seemed  a  strange  lamentable  exception,  something 
that  could  not  happen  again.  It  was  forgotten  in 
what  was  surely  much  commoner,  a  friendship  in 
which  her  pure  and  tender  faith  was  the  most  help- 
ful part  of  her  charitable  gift. 

There  were  nooks  and  corners  in  the  house  where 
she  loved  to  secrete  small  stores  of  good  food, 
gathered  from  the  dinner-table — ^grapes,  a  jeUy,  a 
dumpling,  saved  for  a  particular  destination. 
There  was  a  cupboard  of  her  own,  in  the  hall,  with 
baskets  on  a  shelf,  and  in  the  baskets  a  basin  of 
soup  or  a  peach.  No  one  ever  saw  her  drive  out 
in  the  afternoon  without  watching  the  bestowal 
of  these  under  the  seats  of  the  carriage,  before  she 
was  ready  to  start ;  the  butler,  following  her  down 
the  steps  with  the  rug  over  his  arm,  had  always  a 
covered  basket  in  his  hand.  And  night  after  night, 
towards  bed-time,  she  was  to  be  seen  busy  about 
her  cupboard,  with  a  haif-surreptitious  air — but 

25 


EARLH AM 

every  one  knew  that  she  was  preparing  the  meal  she 
always  left  in  the  porch  for  the  policeman,  for  him 
to  find  when  he  made  his  round  at  dead  of  night ; 
and  in  the  silence  of  the  small  hours  you  might  hear 
a  window  thrown  open,  and  her  clear  voice  calling 
to  him,  and  an  exchange  of  cheerful  christian 
words. 

7 

But  I  forgot — the  children  were  racing  to  the 
top  of  the  house,  I  think,  bent  on  a  certain  errand. 
At  the  very  top  of  the  house  is  a  short  passage, 
approached  (in  the  lavish  old  way)  by  a  staircase 
at  either  end,  where  you  reach  the  attics  in  the 
roof.  One  of  these  rooms  it  is  that  we  make  for, 
at  any  hour  of  the  day;  and  with  my  hand  once 
more  upon  the  latch  I  could  hesitate  and  draw 
back,  before  opening  the  door  to  such  a  surge  of 
associations.  But  who  ever  hesitated  at  that  door  ? 
We  tumble  in,  at  all  hours ;  and  I  believe  there  is 
not  an  inch  of  it,  walls  and  floor,  that  I  could  not 
exactly  describe  at  this  moment. 

It  is  a  very  bright  and  pleasant  room,  with  two 
southern  dormer-windows  that  command  the  great 
lawn.  A  bed  is  immediately  in  front  of  you,  as  you 
enter ;  at  the  foot  of  it  a  narrow  sofa ;  between  one 
of  the  windows  and  the  fire-place  a  high-backed 
arm-chair,  with  a  small  round  table  before  it.  And 
in  the  chair  there  sits,  waiting  for  you,  always 
quietly  ready  and  pleased  at  your  approach,  an 
old  lady,  a  charmingly  dressed  and  capped  and 
shawled  old  lady,  with  soft  cheeks,  bright  eyes,  and 
smooth  creamy-white  hair  under  her  cap — the  old 

26 


INDOORS 

friend,  the  old  nurse,  of  all  our  grandmother's  many 
children. 

Within  our  memory,  that  of  the  children  of  the 
children,  she  had  always  sat  up  there  in  her  room ; 
infirmity  held  her  fast.  Her  eyes  met  us  with  a 
welcome  as  we  entered,  with  soft  clear  looks  of 
pleasure,  and  we  huddled  round  her  with  the  news 
of  the  day.  Gentle  and  motherly  she  was,  comfort- 
able to  a  child ;  that  is  the  impression  that  comes 
back  to  me  from  the  beginning.  It  was  happy  and 
satisfying  to  be  with  her;  things  went  well,  the 
world  was  secure  and  friendly  in  her  room.  The 
hours  we  spent  there  were  hours  that  could  be 
relied  on,  unfaiUngly  good  and  right.  How  was 
that  ?  We  clustered  about  her,  settled  upon  her, 
installed  ourselves  at  her  table  with  our  books  or 
paint-boxes ;  we  examined  her  possessions,  we  felt 
at  home.  And  yet,  as  I  look  into  her  soft  dimpled 
face  and  hear  her  kind  voice,  she  seems  to  be  using 
no  arts,  to  be  doing  nothing  to  keep  the  children 
amused  and  happy;  she  simply  sits  with  a  light 
of  pleasure  on  her  face,  and  the  children  are  always 
good  and  occupied  and  entertained  in  her  pres- 
ence. 

And  certainly  it  was  not  only  the  children — 
she  was  sought  out  by  everybody  in  the  house ;  her 
room  was  a  gathering-place  for  all.  Old  and  young 
needed  her  alike;  they  brought  her  their  news, 
their  troubles,  hopes,  interests,  confiding  everything 
to  her  deep  heart.  She  sat  there  all  day  long  in  her 
corner,  never  leaving  her  room,  and  the  Hfe  around 
her,  age  or  youth,  came  to  her  perpetually  for  help. 
She  had  a  gift  for  all ;  and  though  I  speak  with  not 

27 


E ARLH AM 

much  more  than  the  remembrance  of  her  gift  for 
a  child,  I  can  easily  see  that  at  any  age,  in  all 
circumstances,  one  would  inevitably  turn  to  her. 
And  still  I  wonder  what  it  was,  the  secret  she 
possessed ;  for  even  while  it  is  plain  that  one  would 
go  straight  to  her  with  the  burden  of  the  moment, 
whatever  it  might  be,  her  loving  wisdom  seems  to 
ease  it  with  scarcely  a  word,  with  no  very  vocal 
sympathy  or  counsel.  But  so  it  was;  quietly 
listening  and  watching,  with  just  her  affection  and 
her  simple  time-mellowed  sagacity,  she  entered  the 
lives  about  her,  and  helped  them. 

To  the  children,  as  I  say,  it  was  a  sense  of  well- 
being,  of  general  Tightness,  that  encompassed  them 
as  they  sat  by  her,  poring  over  old  treasures  and 
relics  that  she  would  produce — or  as  they  wandered 
and  tacked  about  the  room,  fingering  the  hundred 
small  objects  with  which  it  was  strewn.  Every  one 
who  came  to  see  her,  the  children  not  least,  con- 
tributed to  the  thick  orderly  sprinkhng  of  picture- 
frames,  china  ornaments,  candlesticks,  odds  and 
ends,  that  covered  the  walls  and  shelves — a  queer 
museum,  with  a  personal  history  to  every  object. 
To  this  day  the  children  could  give  a  fair  account 
of  that  collection;  piece  by  piece  they  turned  it 
over,  as  it  steadily  grew  and  grew;  there  was  a 
name  and  an  occasion  attached  to  everything, 
perhaps  an  anecdote.  But  there  was  not  much 
story-teUing — I  am  surprised  to  notice  how  little. 
I  should  have  expected  to  find  that  we  were  always 
clamouring  for  tales  of  the  past  and  hanging  upon 
her  reminiscences.  But  that  was  not  her  way ;  she 
seemed  to  look  on  and  smile  her  benediction  while 

28 


INDOORS 

we  amused  ourselves,  and  the  hour  prospered  under 
her  mere  look. 

She  saw  from  her  window  the  smooth  expanse  of 
the  lawn — the  lawn  that  was  so  great  a  part  of  the 
character  of  the  garden.  It  was  very  large,  wider 
than  the  whole  southern  front  of  the  house ;  and 
some  twenty  or  thirty  yards  from  the  garden-door  it 
suddenly  shelved  up  in  a  steep  bank,  and  the  main 
expanse  was  on  the  higher  level.  It  was  thus  like 
a  raised  plain,  outspread  before  the  upper  windows 
of  the  house;  to  right  and  left  were  shrubberies 
of  oak,  larch,  flowering  trees,  and  beyond  it  was 
the  sunk  fence  and  the  oaks  of  the  park.  There  was 
room  for  widely  scattered  groups  of  people,  intent 
here  and  there  on  their  different  games,  croquet- 
hoops  on  one  side,  a  lawn-tennis  net  on  the  other. 
Shadows  lay  across  it  in  lengthening  jags  and 
promontories  through  the  afternoon ;  and  our  old 
friend,  at  her  high  window,  watched  the  hght 
dresses  and  flannels  that  twinkled  in  the  distance, 
in  the  light  and  shade.  Serenely  patient,  expecting 
nothing,  demanding  nothing,  she  lived  up  there, 
with  not  a  thought  or  an  interest  in  the  world,  I 
suppose,  outside  the  lives  of  all  of  us.  And  pre- 
sently she  heard  our  feet  on  the  stairs — the  children, 
it  might  be,  or  our  uncles  from  their  game,  or  a 
visiting  cousin,  or  our  grandmother,  mounting  to 
that  high  room  for  brief  repose  in  the  midst  of  her 
incessant  movement  and  occupation ;  and  the  gentle 
old  face  by  the  window  lit  up  for  us  aU,  and  wrought 
its  spell  of  harmony  and  comfort. 

Her  room  was  really,  I  think,  the  centre  of  the 
house,  while  she  lived.     There,  in  all  the  coming 

29 


EARLHAM 

and  going,  in  the  middle  of  changing  life,  the 
children  growing  up,  the  young  people  marrying, 
the  new  children  appearing — in  the  midst  of  the 
continual  stir  of  hospitality  with  which  Earlham 
never  ceased  to  echo,  gathering  in  one  generation 
after  another — there,  for  so  many  years,  she  re- 
mained immobile,  always  the  same,  always  to  be 
found  in  her  corner.  Through  the  adventures  and 
possibiUties  of  the  day,  innumerable  they  seemed 
to  us,  the  thought  of  climbing  her  stairs  and  paying 
her  a  visit  ran  as  an  unbroken  thread;  there  was 
never  an  hour  when  that  plan  was  doubtful  or 
impossible.  And  for  every  one  else  it  was  the  same ; 
there  was  one  certainty  of  daily  life,  to  sit  by  her 
side  in  the  window-nook  and  to  teU  her  what  had 
happened  since  yesterday,  since  this  morning. 

Far  back,  in  an  earlier  generation,  it  was  a 
tradition  of  the  place,  we  used  to  be  told,  that  the 
family  circle  should  be  drawn  together  at  certain 
hours  of  the  day — gathered  round  a  table  under  a 
lamp,  perhaps,  with  books  and  appropriate  occupa- 
tions, or  for  talk,  seriously  directed  and  regulated — 
for  a  "  settlement,"  anyhow,  that  being  the  family 
word  for  it ;  but  it  was  a  tradition  that  was  not  at 
all  in  the  line  of  our  grandmother's  restless  active 
original  genius.  She  was  incapable  of  living  by 
fixed  plans,  stated  hours,  humdrum  habits;  and 
it  comes  back  to  me  that  the  Earlham  day  reflected 
her  free  spirit.  It  is  impossible  to  imagine  her 
leading  a  settlement.  In  the  whole  house  she  had 
not  a  place  of  her  own,  not  a  sitting-room  for  her 
private  use  (at  least  she  never  used  it),  not  a  chair 
or  a  corner  sacred  to  her ;  she  ranged  freely,  sat  for 

30 


INDOORS 

a  moment  to  scribble  a  note,  threw  open  a  window 
(that,  always),  and  passed  on.  It  meant  that  at 
any  time  there  was  no  sa5dng  where  she  might  be 
or  might  not;  and  the  manner  of  her  genius  per- 
vaded the  house.  I  remember  how  a  child  would 
feel  that  there  might  be  important  events  proceed- 
ing and  companies  assembled  somewhere  in  the 
house,  but  that  you  could  not  tell  where;  to  fix 
yourself  in  one  room  might  always  entail  your 
missing  an  interesting  occasion  in  another.  There 
was  very  little  routine,  no  centre  of  gravity  in  the 
place — none,  that  is  to  say,  except  in  that  upper 
chamber  where  time  stood  still.  You  might  find 
every  other  room  in  the  house  deserted  (with  all 
the  windows  open),  no  nucleus  of  life  anywhere; 
but  up  there  was  fixity,  security,  a  settlement 
indeed.  And  so  there  was  a  constant  tendency  in 
that  direction,  and  life  of  all  ages  set  habitually 
towards  our  beloved  old  friend. 

8 
The  Green  Room,  the  Chintz  Room,  the  North 
Room,  the  Great  Room — but  there  I  pause;  the 
Great  Room  is  too  strange  and  singular  to  pass  by. 
It  was  enormous;  that  is  to  say,  it  was  no  bigger 
than  the  drawing-room  beneath,  but  it  was  exactly 
as  big  (extending  all  over  it),  and  for  a  bed-room, 
low-ceilinged,  with  only  two  or  three  far-scattered 
small  windows,  it  made  a  broad  acre  of  floor.  It 
was  undeniably  sinister;  with  the  thin  light  of  its 
small  windows  and  its  huge  spread,  it  was  like  a 
prison-cell  designed  for  a  giant.  Sometimes,  waking 
in  the  darkness,  safely  in  your  own  bed  elsewhere, 

31 


EARLHAM 

you  might  be  visited  by  the  thought  of  the  Great 
Room — ^how  the  moonhght  would  be  trickhng  over 
the  floor  there  at  that  moment,  how  the  deathly 
silence  might  be  broken  by  a  strange  low  muttering, 
then  a  dull  thud,  and  suddenly  a  scream  rang  out — 
but  enough;  even  to  one  penetrating  there  in  fuU 
dayhght,  hanging  upon  the  housemaids  at  their 
work,  the  Great  Room  was  sufficiently  disquieting. 

I  beheve  there  was  indeed  some  legend  of  horror 
told  of  that  room,  but  I  never  knew  6i  it  till  after- 
times.  To  our  grandmother  fear  and  its  fascina- 
tions were  unknown ;  she  thought  such  stories  silly 
and  ugly,  and  altogether  discountenanced  them. 
She  would  not  have  the  sweet  old  place  profaned  by 
ugliness,  by  idle  fancies  that  are  worse  than  idle, 
that  are  false  and  wrong.  If  Earlham  was  haunted, 
it  could  only  be  by  spirits  of  the  blest — by  Aunt 
Catherine,  perhaps,  or  Uncle  Joseph  John,  revisiting 
the  old  rooms  with  a  soft  Quakerly  benediction. 
She  was  pleased  with  the  thought  that  some  touch 
of  a  kindly  hand  unseen  might  stir  the  curtain, 
some  mild  and  gracious  sigh  of  vanished  life, 
affectionately  hovering  near,  be  uttered  upon  the 
midnight ;  it  was  seemly  and  right,  in  a  place  whose 
children  had  loved  it  so  tenderly  of  old.  Perhaps 
such  sweet  wistful  roaming  and  wandering  might  be 
permitted  to  a  loving  spirit — -who  can  say?  But 
terrifying  and  ugly  things  of  the  past  are  mercifully 
buried  and  forgotten;  no  power  can  live  in  them 
to  disturb  a  place  like  Earlham,  glowing  in  the  love 
of  its  children. 

The  Blue  Room,  the  East  Room — as  I  make  the 
round  of  the  house,  images  start  up,  not  at  all  terri- 

32 


INDOORS 

f3dng,  from  every  comer.  E^ch  of  the  rooms  at 
Earlham  had  its  Uttle  powder-closet,  shced  out  of 
itself  or  scooped  in  the  wall  or  pushed  forward  in  an 
excrescence  without ;  and  in  the  closet  of  the  East 
Room  there  was  a  wondrous  bath,  more  Hke  a  tank 
or  cistern,  inserted  there  by  Uncle  Joseph  John,  it 
may  be,  Borrow's  old  gentleman  in  the  broad  hat. 
He  or  one  of  the  others  of  his  day  must  have  had 
the  fantastic  notion  of  bathing  in  water  every 
morning,  from  head  to  foot;  and  so  the  powder- 
closet  had  been  fitted  with  a  great  black  awful 
leaden  tank,  under  a  wooden  hd ;  I  would  as  soon 
have  taken  my  bath  in  the  well  by  the  back-door, 
I  remember  thinking,  as  have  entrusted  myself  to 
that  black  pit.  In  the  ceiling  above  it  there  were 
perforated  holes,  for  a  shower-bath;  so  that  our 
ancestor  was  not  only  immersed,  but  rained  upon 
from  overhead — evidently  a  man  of  nerve,  and  of 
ideas  beyond  his  age.  I  picture  him  bringing  his 
friends  to  view  the  curiosity.  But  after  him  no  one 
apparently,  any  more  than  I  myself,  had  the  nerve 
to  plunge  into  his  pit.  It  was  never  used ;  only  a 
child  would  sometimes  climb  on  to  the  wooden  Ud 
and  thump  out  its  hoUow  echo,  or  tug  it  open  a 
few  inches  and  peer  into  the  empty  black  depth 
with  a  shudder. 

The  East  Room,  with  its  broad  windows  looking 
to  the  green  back-yard,  brings  me  to  the  end  of  the 
chief  passage,  near  our  nursery;  the  East  Room 
door  and  the  nursery  door  (one  of  the  five)  are  left 
and  right  towards  the  end  of  the  passage.  One 
drifts  back  into  the  bright  bare  nursery.  From 
thence  you  can  pass  from  room  to  room,  the  whole 

33  ^ 


EARLHAM 

length  of  the  house,  without  touching  the  passage 
at  all.  Every  room  opens  into  the  next;  there  is 
our  grandmother's  charming  panelled  bed-room, 
with  the  old  portrait  of  the  unknown  lady  in  blue, 
framed  in  the  woodwork  of  the  chimney-piece ;  there 
is  another  room  and  another  (our  grandmother's 
sitting-room,  where  she  seldom  happens  to  sit) ; 
there  is  a  scrap  of  a  dressing-room,  and  then  there 
is  the  Ante-room  Chamber,  the  nicest  room  in  the 
house,  assigned  to  the  principal  guest  of  the  moment. 
That  was  a  dehghtful  room — with  windows  on  two 
sides,  a  vast  four-poster,  and  a  door  in  one  corner 
where  you  fell  down  a  httle  private  stair-case  in  the 
wall,  and  were  shed  into  the  great  dim  ante-room, 
of  which  I  have  spoken  already.  And  this  was  the 
corner  of  the  house  where  Aunt  Catherine,  if  any- 
where, should  come  straying  out  of  the  past,  roam- 
ing among  her  memories  in  the  silence  of  the  night, 
and  just  betraying  herself  sometimes,  perhaps,  by  a 
light  sigh  or  murmur  of  full-hearted  tenderness,  as 
she  treads  the  well-known  stairs  again.  The  Ante- 
room Chamber  was  her  room,  during  the  long  Hfe- 
time  that  she  spent  at  Earlham. 

She  was  our  great-grandfather's  sister,  and 
Elizabeth  Fry's  and  Uncle  Joseph  John's;  there 
were  many  more  of  them  too,  a  large  gay  party, 
and  Catherine  was  the  eldest.  Their  father  brought 
them  to  make  their  home  at  Earlham,  long  ago; 
and  their  beautiful  mother  (exquisite  she  is,  in  a 
picture  by  Gainsborough)  died  when  the  eldest  was 
still  very  young.  There  were  eleven  of  them,  a 
blooming  brood,  and  Catherine  ruled  the  house. 
She  hved  on  and  on,  continually  at  Earlham,  when 

34 


INDOORS 

the  rest  of  them  scattered  off  into  the  world ;  she 
Hved  with  her  brother  and  his  wife.  Our  grand- 
mother, as  a  girl  and  in  the  time  of  her  first  marriage 
(to  a  nephew  of  Aunt  Catherine's),  had  known  and 
gratefully  loved  her.  When  she  spoke  of  "  dear 
Aunt  Catherine,"  it  gave  us  a  sense  of  reaching 
back  into  the  dawn  of  time.  That  our  grandmother, 
a  girl,  had  known  such  antiquities,  called  them 
Uncles  and  Aunts — nothing  could  be  more  legendary 
than  that. 

9 
These  old  Gurneys  were  people  of  note,  in  their 

degree;  together  they  made  a  group  that  is  still 
expressive  and  marked  with  character.  They  were 
handsome,  gifted,  humane ;  and  as  they  grew  and 
reached  their  moral  stature  they  might  fairly  be 
called  very  good.  Their  sainthness  bequeathed  a 
savour  to  the  place;  but  their  lighter  youth  left 
a  ringing  echo  that  had  never  died  out.  Is  it 
supposed  that  a  family  of  young  Friends,  four  or 
five  generations  ago,  were  of  necessity  bred  and 
trained  in  puritanical  strictness,  their  merry-making 
frowned  upon,  their  chatter  silenced  with  pious 
admonition  ?  Look,  then,  at  the  seven  Miss 
Gurneys,  all  blooming  and  sparkling,  well  known 
over  the  country-side  in  their  scarlet  cloaks  or 
habits;  there  was  no  unnatural  solemnity  in  that 
bright  chorus.  Once,  we  were  told,  they  all  joined 
hands  across  the  Norwich  road  and  stopped  the 
mail-coach — a  gay-coloured  picture,  under  a  frosty 
winter  sky. 

Their  father,  I  should  think,  was  a  worthy  and 

35 


E ARLH AM 

not  an  interesting  man.  All  his  history  is  that  he 
married  the  charming  Gainsborough  lady,  Catherine 
Bell  was  her  name,  and  that  his  affairs  prospered 
far  enough  to  enable  him  to  plant  his  family  at 
Earlham  in  1786 — two  good  achievements  in  a  life 
not  otherwise  notable.  No  legend  ever  grew  about 
his  name ;  he  seems  to  have  sat  in  the  background 
placidly  till  he  died.  His  children  were  of  a  very 
different  stamp.  Even  when  they  left  off  their 
scarlet  cloaks  and  purple  boots  and  took  to  stricter 
ways,  clothing  themselves  in  drab  and  dun,  their 
originality  was  never  quenched.  They  had  the 
secret  of  giving  a  kind  of  lilt  or  fling  to  their  pious 
exercises,  or  some  of  them  had  at  any  rate,  and  in 
their  saintly  old  age  they  were  never  quite  cut  off 
from  their  merry  youth.  They  created  legend 
wherever  they  went ;  bits  of  it  that  clung  to  various 
corners  of  the  house  and  garden  at  Earlham  were 
familiar  to  the  children  in  a  later  day.  Here,  in  the 
Ante-room  Chamber,  was  where  good  Catherine 
used  to  collect  her  small  sisters  round  her  (the  very 
type  and  pattern  of  a  settlement)  and  encourage 
their  young  ideas,  sympathetically  eliciting  and 
directing  them.  She  managed  her  big  family 
(beginning  to  do  so  when  she  was  herself  about 
seventeen)  with  tender  tact  and  judgment;  and 
she  had  the  satisfaction  of  sitting  nearly  all  her  life 
long  at  Earlham  to  watch  their  virtue  and  fehcity 
in  their  different  careers. 

Often  I  have  tried  to  picture  that  party;  and  I 
get  flashes  of  sight  of  them  that  are  strangely 
familiar.  But  that  is  in  the  garden,  mostly,  where 
I  have  not  yet  arrived:  and  the  vision  that  faces 

36 


INDOORS 

me  now,  in  the  doorway  of  Aunt  Catherine's  room, 
belongs  to  our  own  day,  when  all  those  old  Friends, 
though  they  lived  long,  were  many  years  dead  and 
gone.  But  in  truth  the  figure  that  I  see  stepping 
forth  with  splendid  dignity  and  grace,  with  a  grand 
air,  sweeping  her  skirt  regally  about  her,  might 
seem  to  have  emerged  from  old  Catherine's  time, 
though  from  a  greater  world  than  hers  ever  was. 
This  striking  and  wonderful  lady — whom  it  so 
happens  that  I  catch  sight  of,  framed  in  the  doorway 
that  leads  to  our  grandmother's  sitting-room — 
treads  the  homely  floor  as  though  it  were  the  gallery 
of  a  palace,  with  a  shining  parquet  stretching  a 
hundred  yards  before  her.  She  advances  like  an 
ambassadress,  like  a  Grand  Duchess — she  moves 
historically,  bringing  something  august  into  the 
place  and  the  occasion.  Her  head  should  have  been 
tired  and  plumed;  but  she  needed  no  plumes — 
they  seemed  to  sweep  the  lintel,  whatever  she  wore. 
She  was  old,  as  I  remember  her,  grey-haired,  her 
face  nobly  marked  with  age;  but  her  figure  was 
slender  and  upright,  there  was  youth  in  her  flowing 
movement.  I  have  seen  no  one  to  match  her,  to 
approach  her,  for  perfect  and  natural  grandeur — it 
is  the  only  word. 

She  was  the  daughter  of  one  of  the  old  Friends  of 
whom  I  have  been  speaking,  Samuel  by  name,  and 
she  inherited  all  the  free  originality  and  charm 
which  they  had  to  bequeath.  But  she  had  added 
much  more  that  was  entirely  her  own;  and  what 
it  was  that  she  had  added  I  measure  by  looking  at 
the  home  of  her  birth — very  vividly  known  to  me 
by  legend,  though  it  had  long  vanished  at  the  time 

37 


EARLHAM 

of  our  appearance.  In  one  of  those  plain  and 
opulent  suburban  mansions,  round  which  and  over 
which  the  tide  of  East  London  has  flowed  in  the 
last  half-century — one  of  those  sound  big  Georgian 
villas,  with  plenty  of  well-kept  flower-beds  and 
shrubberies  and  hot-houses,  where  solid  and  expen- 
sive comfort  was  joined  with  a  dread  of  worldly 
show,  where  the  spirit  of  an  early  Christian  was 
engaged  in  large  financial  interests  and  operations — 
that  was  where  she  had  been  bred,  with  her  brothers 
and  sisters.  It  was  a  closely  compacted  world; 
and  as  it  exists,  or  something  like  it,  in  certain  well- 
known  pages — Sophia  Alethea  Newcome  lived  in 
such  a  house,  and  so  did  the  parents  of  Ruskin — it 
strikes  the  imagination  oppressively,  no  doubt. 
But  I  like  to  think  that  in  this  world  the  Society  of 
Friends  brought  a  brisker  infusion;  they  were 
lighter,  they  were  less  solemn  than  Sophia  Alethea, 
with  her  tracts  and  her  droning  preachers;  they 
wore  their  piety  more  easily,  more  genially,  less  as  a 
burden  and  a  bondage.  Did  they  not  ?  At  any  rate 
our  good  great-grandfather,  Samuel  Gurney,  was  a 
man  of  wise  and  sunny  humour.  He  carried  up  to 
London,  from  Earlham,  some  strain  of  whimsical 
humanity  that  he  never  lost,  a  shrewd  appreciative 
chuckle ;  I  speak  as  though  I  had  seen  and  heard  it, 
for  I  did  see  and  hear  it,  transmitted  to  certain  of  his 
family.  And  so  his  household,  solid  as  it  was,  could 
never  be  heavy ;  there  could  be  nothing  like  a  drone 
or  a  dull  sing-song  in  his  piety. 

But  that  Quaker-world,  nevertheless,  was  aloof 
and  aloft  and  detached  from  the  general  structure 
of  life ;  it  strikes  one  as  held  in  suspense,  with  space 

38 


INDOORS 

all  round  it,  nowhere  rooted  in  the  soil.  Consider, 
for  instance,  the  old  family-circle  at  Earlham.  If 
you  had  fallen  in  upon  them  on  a  summer  afternoon, 
a  century  ago  and  more,  when  they  were  chattering 
and  roaming  about  the  place,  or  grouped  about  the 
garden,  reading,  drawing,  stitching,  it  would  have 
seemed  aperfect  pictureof  an  English  country-home, 
the  beautiful  old  house  and  park  with  its  bevy  of 
fresh  j^oung  daughters  among  the  ancestral  oaks; 
nothing  could  look  more  natural,  traditional,  after 
the  home-grown  fashion,  in  the  line  of  English 
ways.  But  it  was  not  so,  really.  I  don't  only  mean 
that  these  people  were  new-comers,  the  daughters  of 
a  prosperous  merchant  who  had  worked  his  way  up 
to  the  ripe  style  and  dignity  of  Earlham — ^who  had 
not  ripened  with  it.  They  were  new-comers ;  but 
there  would  be  nothing  against  the  English  tradition 
in  that,  after  all;  not  once  or  twice  in  our  story 
have  new  men  rooted  themselves  upon  old  acres. 
That,  however,  was  exactly  what  these  people  did 
not  do;  they  came,  they  brought  a  blessing,  but 
they  never — ^how  shall  I  put  it? — they  never 
involved  or  implicated  themselves  with  the  earth 
they  trod.  In  all  their  long  tenure  of  Earlham, 
extending  over  three  generations,  they  never  owned 
the  soil  upon  which  it  stood ;  and  though  the  fact 
may  have  meant  nothing,  or  nothing  more  than  a 
chapter  of  accidents,  still  it  seems  in  a  way  symboli- 
cal. The  Quaker-circle  was  a  law  to  itself;  it  had 
its  own  idiom,  not  of  language  only. 

They  did  not  belong  to  the  country-side,  they  did 
not  belong  to  the  world.  Their  Christian  piety  took 
them  on   Sundays,   not   to  the  ivy-tangled  flint 

39 


E ARLH AM 

church  at  their  gates,  where  the  ancient  threads  of 
village  life  were  gathered  up,  but  to  some  blank 
meeting-house  in  a  chance  back-street  of  Norwich. 
Their  faith,  their  fervour,  their  charitable  hearts 
were  wide  and  deep ;  but  around  them  was  the  void, 
isolating  them  in  a  world  of  their  own.  I  am  evi- 
dently trying  to  say  that  they  were  primitive  Chris- 
tians. And  when  they  went  out  and  became 
missionaries  and  reformers,  like  Aunt  Fry  among 
the  prisoners,  touring  the  capitals  of  Europe, 
reasoning  graciously  with  kings  and  statesmen — 
then  more  than  ever  they  were  distinguished  from 
the  world,  they  were  unlike  other  people,  they  were 
Friends.  When  they  went  out  and  became  bankers 
and  merchants,  and  prospered  exceedingly,  it  was 
doubtless  the  same — at  least  I  hope  it  was;  their 
prosperity,  we  always  understood  and  believed,  was 
founded  upon  the  rigidest  Friendly  principles. 

I  conclude,  then,  that  Samuel  Gurney's  solid 
establishment  to  the  east  of  London — the  place  still 
exists  as  an  open  playground,  somewhere  in  the 
brick  waste  of  the  Stratford  region — was  delightful, 
cheerful,  hospitable,  generous;  but  unrelated,  un- 
conditioned, in  the  widest  sense  unworldly.  I  see 
no  background  to  it,  nothing  to  link  it  with  history. 
And  yet  there  steps  out  this  daughter  of  the  house, 
this  noble  great  lady  with  her  imperial  tread,  who 
crosses  the  room  as  though  it  were  the  galerie  des 
glaces,  and  she  herself  serenely,  unconsciously  at 
home  there. 

She  indeed  had  issued  forth  from  the  close  circle 
and  had  joined  the  march  of  the  world ;  and  when  I 
recall  her  bountiful  and  vivacious  kindness  to  the 

40 


INDOORS 

children  of  our  generation,  to  us,  an  air  of  the  grand 
Steele  seems  to  breathe  through  it,  an  initiation  for 
the  children  into  the  meaning  of  style.  But  to 
follow  my  memories  of  this  wondrous  great-aunt 
would  take  me  too  far ;  this  is  only  a  glimpse  that  I 
chance  to  get  of  her  at  Earlham.  And  there  is 
another  fleeting  picture — ^in  the  same  room,  our 
grandmother's  sitting-room — that  I  may  place 
beside  it,  for  it  is  a  picture  of  another  member  of  old 
Samuel's  large  family.  One  of  our  great-uncles, 
this,  and  a  very  fine  old  gentleman,  though  not 
magnificent  and  European,  like  his  sister;  he  was 
British  and  jolly,  with  a  lovely  wink  of  slyness  and 
mystery  when  he  drew  his  hand  from  his  pocket  and 
held  it  out,  the  broad  palm  studded  with  shillings 
and  half-crowns,  for  us  to  choose  the  coin  we 
preferred.  He  was  stone-deaf,  and  it  needed  a  great 
deal  of  resolution  to  pipe  one's  thanks  into  the 
gaping  mouth  of  his  bright  trumpet.  But  at  this 
moment,  in  the  sitting-room,  what  was  it  that  had 
gone  wrong?  Nothing  serious,  nothing  to  matter, 
only  enough  to  ruffie  his  genial  face  with  just  a 
passing,  pouting  breeze  of  displeasure — enough  to 
make  him  present  his  trumpet  at  his  daughter, 
bending  over  him,  with  an  indignant  and  question- 
ing flourish.  What  had  she  to  say  about  it  ?  Nothing 
except  that  she  was  so  sorry,  so  very  sorry — but 
her  pretty  voice  rose  higher  and  higher,  wailing  into 
the  trumpet-mouth.  "  I'm  so-o-o-o  sorry  "  ;  and 
the  breeze  passed,  geniality  shone  back — and  it  is  all 
vanished  and  gone,  leaving  only  the  little  unefface- 
able  memory  of  the  fresh-coloured  old  gentleman, 
with  pursed  mouth  and  inquiring  eye,  his  daughter 

41 


E ARLH AM 

stooping  over  his  chair,  and  the  clear  soaring  wail  of 
her  distress.  Who  shall  say  what  a  child  will 
remember  and  what  forget  ? 


10 

The  sitting-room  gave  you  an  impression  of  big 
high  windows,  a  matted  floor,  some  rather  spindly 
gilt  furniture — but  especially,  perhaps,  of  a  quantity 
of  water-colour  pictures,  evidently  all  by  one  hand, 
with  which  the  walls  were  covered.  They  were  all 
pictures  of  Earlham,  the  house,  the  park,  the  village ; 
there  may  have  been  twenty  or  thirty  of  them. 
They  were  lightly  tinted  old  things,  done  with  a 
good  deal  of  accomplishment ;  and  resolutely  pic- 
turesque, as  though  the  drawing-master  had  stood 
looking  over  the  shoulder  of  the  artist,  pointing  out 
that  the  bough  of  a  tree  should  always  chance  to 
arch  over  the  foreground,  and  a  figure  in  a  red  cloak 
pass  across  the  middle  distance  in  a  woodland  scene. 
The  facts  of  the  landscape  gave  way  if  they  con- 
flicted with  the  rules  of  the  game,  which  the  artist 
played  conscientiously;  but  they  were  pretty  pic- 
tures, not  without  an  elegant  distinction,  and  on  the 
whole  they  were  faithful  portraits  of  the  place. 

The  artist  was  Richenda  Gurney,  sister  of  old 
Samuel,  and  one  of  the  blooming  seven  in  red  coats 
who  stopped  the  coach.  She  was  very  fluent  with 
brush  and  pencil,  covered  many  walls  with  her 
framed  pictures,  and  filled  a  pile  of  sketch-books 
with  drawings  of  mossy  cottages  and  ivied  ruins 
wherever  she  went.  She  married  a  clergyman,  a 
real  Established  rector,  Mr.  Cunningham  of  Lowes- 

42 


1 


INDOORS 

toft  church;  and  then  she  left  being  a  Quakeress, 
and  "  went  over  " — I  dare  say  it  was  not  far  to  go. 
Mr.  Cunningham's  church  services,  I  have  heard, 
were  very  comfortable  and  homely.  On  Sunday 
evenings  especially,  when  the  lamps  burnt  bright 
and  warm  in  the  church,  and  the  parishioners  came 
trooping  into  their  seats,  and  the  sea-wind  moaned 
without — then  was  the  time  for  Aunt  Cunningham 
to  enjoy  herself  among  her  flock.  Evening  church 
was  infinitely  grateful  and  satisfying  to  them  all — 
a  cheerful,  sociable  scene,  with  the  bright  lamp-light 
falling  on  all  the  well-known  faces,  rosy  in  the 
pleasant  warmth  after  a  cold  walk.  They  rise  from 
their  knees.  Aunt  Cunningham  and  her  friends,  and 
settle  themselves  in  their  places  with  beaming  looks, 
disposing  their  preparations  about  them,  their  wraps 
and  Bibles  and  hymn-books,  for  an  hour  that  is  the 
treat  of  the  whole  week.  "  Here  we  all  are  again," 
they  seem  to  say,  radiantly  glancing.  "  Now!  " — 
and  off  they  go  in  a  fine  florid  hymn- tune,  "  Helms- 
ley  "  I  hope,  with  plenty  of  trailing  sweeps  up  to 
high  notes,  in  which  enjoyment  can  really  give 
tongue. 

It  is  seventy,  eighty,  ninety  years  ago;  but  I 
could  imagine  I  had  seen  it.  Uncle  and  Aunt 
Cunningham  were  greatly  honoured  and  cherished 
in  the  legend  as  it  reached  us ;  and  the  legend  had  a 
particular  association  with  Earlham  in  the  coming 
time,  the  time  that  eventually  brought  the  children 
thither  of  whom  I  speak.  There  was  a  curate  at 
Lowestoft,  fresh  from  Cambridge — a  tall,  lean 
young  man,  with  a  large  brow  and  a  narrow  pointed 
chin,  looking  like  a  scholar  and  a  student.    Before 

43 


EARLH AM 

long  he  married  and  came  to  live  at  Earlham;  he 
was  our  grandfather — to  be  accurate,  our  step- 
grandfather,  as  I  have  said. 

Earlham,  it  will  be  understood,  had  first  been  the 
home  of  the  big  Quaker  family,  the  eleven  brothers 
and  sisters ;  and  then,  when  they  scattered,  of  one 
of  the  brothers,  Joseph  John.  He  died  in  the  forties ; 
and  what  was  then  to  become  of  Earlham,  which 
had  made  itself  so  beloved  to  half  a  century  of 
Gurneys  ?  The  question  was  asked  by  a  Gurney  of 
the  next  generation,  John  by  name,  who  was  living 
with  his  young  wife  in  a  house  down  by  the  church, 
in  Earlham  village.  They  walked  up  to  the  Hall, 
the  day  after  old  Joseph  John  had  been  buried, 
walked  round  the  garden  and  on  to  the  great  lawn, 
and  looked  up  at  the  empty  windows  of  the  house. 
Who  will  live  here  now  ? — is  there  nobody  to  carry 
on  the  good  tradition  ?  They  asked  and  wondered, 
and  they  might  have  wished  to  do  so  themselves ; 
it  seemed  beyond  them  at  the  time.  The  house 
stood  empty  for  a  few  years,  but  only  for  a  few; 
then  this  John  Gurney  of  the  new  generation,  son 
of  old  Samuel,  brought  his  young  wife  and  their 
small  children  to  live  there  after  all.  For  himself 
it  was  not  a  long  sojourn ;  he  died  very  soon.  But 
his  young  widow,  still  very  young,  lived  there  for 
nearly  fifty  years,  till  the  end  of  her  days,  and  she 
was  our  grandmother. 

So  young,  so  pretty,  so  good,  with  her  family  of 
small  children,  she  was  much  befriended  in  her 
widowhood  by  the  surviving  old  Gurneys — who  in- 
deed had  known  and  loved  her,  I  suppose,  from  the 
beginning,  for  the  home  of  her  parents  was  near  by, 

44 


INDOORS 

in  the  Cathedral  Close  of  Norwich,  and  from  there 
she  had  been  married.  And  now  she  was  alone  at 
Earlham,  and  many  of  the  old  Gurneys  were  dead 
and  gone  by  this  time,  but  there  were  still  a  few  of 
them  left.  Catherine  was  gone,  the  eldest  of  the 
eleven ;  she  had  been  the  best  friend  of  all,  and  she 
had  lived  just  long  enough  to  give  her  blessing  to  a 
new  Catherine  Gurney,  our  grandmother's  one 
daughter.  Of  those  that  remained  of  the  old 
generation,  the  kindest  and  best-beloved,  no  doubt, 
was  Aunt  Cunningham  at  Lowestoft.  The  cheerful 
rectory  by  the  sea  was  well-known  to  our  grand- 
mother's children,  and  she  herself  would  be  made 
thrice- welcome  there. 

And  so  in  process  of  time  she  married  again,  and 
Earlham  received  the  tall  thin  benevolent  stranger, 
and  a  new  tradition  was  begun  there  that  was  no 
break  with  the  old.  The  new  master  of  the  house 
was  now  the  rector  of  St.  Giles's,  the  big  church  with 
the  fine  old  tower  and  belfry  on  the  outskirt  (then 
and  long  after  the  outskirt)  of  Norwich,  as  you  leave 
the  city  by  the  Earlham  road.  He  was  rector  there 
for  thirty  years,  and  I  know  something  of  the  many 
great  works  that  he  achieved  in  the  place,  he  and 
our  grandmother  together.  But  I  speak  only  of 
what  I  can  see,  by  my  own  memory  or  that  of  others, 
and  here  sight  fails  me ;  for  in  our  day,  as  I  have 
mentioned,  his  cure  was  that  of  the  red-tiled 
cottages  at  Earlham  and  Colney.  I  only  see  exactly 
how  his  tall  black  figure  would  disappear  across  the 
lawn,  trudging  steadily,  as  he  set  off  by  the  fields  for 
the  Norwich  road ;  and  I  guess  that  his  name  is  not 
forgotten    in    the    parish    of    St.    Giles — William 

45 


E ARLH AM 

Nottidge  Ripley,   a  memorable  rector  there  for 
thirty  years. 

II 

The  new  tradition  at  Earlham  was  very  like  the 
old ;  but  in  certain  ways  it  was  a  much  better  one. 
Our  grandparents  struck  deeply  into  the  soil  of  the 
life  around  them;  that  sense  of  a  space-encircled, 
insulated  household,  which  I  got  from  the  older 
story  of  the  place,  could  not  survive  for  a  day  in  the 
new  condition  of  things  which  they  created.  Earl- 
ham was  no  longer  only  a  family  affair,  the  centre 
of  a  close  circle ;  it  was  diffused,  spreading  year  by 
year  in  widest  commonalty.  Our  grandfather,  though 
he  believed  that  he  believed  in  a  doctrine  both  narrow 
and  harsh — how  narrow,  how  blackly  intolerant  was 
revealed  when  it  appeared  in  others  of  a  different 
clay — ^hved  upon  free  spiritual  emotions  that  broad- 
ened continually,  I  judge,  as  he  advanced  to  old 
age.  And  as  for  our  grandmother,  her  unfettered, 
untutored,  impulsive  heart  made  nothing  of  any 
barriers ;  it  ignored  distinctions  and  conventions,  it 
ranged  where  it  would,  swiftly  responding  to  any 
human  call. 

She  was  one  who  acted  always  on  impulse,  on 
the  beat  of  the  moment ;  and  since  she  never  knew 
a  thought  that  was  in  sight  of  being  a  selfish  one, 
the  whole  surface  of  her  life  was  sensitive  and  quick 
to  the  world  about  her.  A  heart  like  hers  can  live 
without  scheme  or  plan,  and  yet  live  in  perfect 
and  consistent  harmony  with  itself ;  for  behind  all 
its  wayward  expression  there  can  never  be  but  a 
single   motive.     Whatever   she   said   or   did   was 

46 


INDOORS 

whatever  seemed  desirable  and  inevitable  then  and 
there,  on  the  instant ;  but  it  was  only  the  form,  the 
manner,  that  was  unexpected,  surprising,  sometimes 
even  disconcerting.  It  was  prompted  by  the  pure 
flame  of  rapture,  I  can  call  it  nothing  else,  which 
was  her  constant  inspiration — an  ardour  of  faith 
and  love  that  was  both  serenely  deep,  and  also  to 
the  end,  for  all  her  many  sorrows,  inextinguishably 

She  had  great  dignity,  the  kind  of  native  dignity 
and  distinction  that  never  needs  to  take  or  dreams 
of  taking  a  single  thought  for  itself.  Matronly  and 
motherly,  with  a  fine  bearing  and  sweep  of  soft 
raiment,  she  met  the  guest  and  presided  over  the 
lavish  hospitality  of  Earlham.  And  yet  it  seems 
to  me,  looking  back,  that  she  was  never  quite  in  the 
place  or  sustaining  the  position  that  you  would 
expect.  She  has  just  for  the  moment  slipped  out  of 
her  place — has  given  up  her  seat  in  the  carriage,  say, 
to  some  tired  woman  she  has  sighted  on  the  road, 
while  she  herself  walks  home — or  she  has  disap- 
peared up  into  the  gallery  in  church  to  direct  the 
organist  (it  was  really  a  harmonium)  or  help  a 
mother  embarrassed  with  a  restless  child — or  she  is 
missed  at  the  head  of  the  table  and  found  at  her 
cupboard  in  the  hall,  secreting  something  that  she 
has  filched  from  one  of  the  dishes  for  a  sick  friend ; 
and  always  with  an  air  of  explaining  that  she  is 
reaUy  not  doing  what  she  clearly  is,  that  she  has  not 
left  her  place,  that  she  will  be  back  there  so  soon 
that  it  doesn't  count.  Then  she  would  join  the 
laugh  against  herself,  but  never  quite  admit  that  it 
was  justified;  there  was  always  a  special  reason 

47 


E ARLH AM 

for  the  aberration  of  the  moment  that  explained  it 
quite  away.  In  her  last  years,  when  she  was 
supposed  to  rest  late  and  not  to  appear  at  morning 
prayers,  there  would  be  heard  a  light  rustle  on  the 
staircase,  while  our  grandfather  was  reading  and 
expounding — a  rustle,  a  faint  sigh,  as  she  sat  by  the 
banisters,  believing  herself  out  of  sight ;  and  well 
I  see  her  afterwards  when  she  protests,  still  seated 
on  the  stairs,  that  indeed  she  has  practically  stayed 
in  bed. 

Best  of  all,  perhaps,  I  see  her  as  she  was  so  often 
to  be  seen,  in  the  garden  of  an  early  summer  morn- 
ing— very  early,  before  the  white  dew  on  the  lawn 
has  been  touched  by  any  footstep  and  while  every- 
thing still  sparkles  and  twinkles,  "  herrhch  wie  am 
erst  en  Tag."  To  the  garden  in  the  freshness  of  its 
magic  she  would  often  be  drawn ;  at  any  hour  she 
might  be  descried,  lightly,  informally  gowned  and 
wrapped,  pacing  the  gravel-paths  with  her  easy 
gracious  upright  movement.  One  may  have  seen 
many  people  enjoying  the  charm  and  benediction 
of  nature  and  drinking  in  the  purity  of  the  morning 
with  delight ;  but  I  am  sure  I  never  saw  any  one  who 
rejoiced  in  the  hour  like  our  grandmother.  She 
moved  through  the  garden,  she  trod  the  walks, 
uplifted  and  transfigured,  as  though  with  triumph 
and  exultation  in  the  loveliness  that  surrounded  her. 
When  the  first  sunshine  shot  across  the  blue- 
shadowed  grass  you  might  discern  her,  looking  from 
your  window,  as  she  strayed  along  the  path  that 
bounded  the  lawn,  on  the  further  side  of  it  from  the 
house,  separated  only  by  the  sunk  fence  from  the 
great  old  oaks  of  the  park.    Slowly  she  moved,  her 

48 


INDOORS 

white  and  trailing  garments  gathered  round  her,  her 
eyes  gazing  widely,  her  face  alight  with  praise  and 
joy.  New  every  morning  was  her  rapture  in  the 
gift  of  the  world's  beauty ;  the  wonder  never  grew 
less,  no  sorrow  dimmed  or  defeated  it.  And  mixed 
with  her  joy  in  the  moment  there  was  always  the 
inner  thought  of  the  celestial  beauty,  unimaginably 
beyond  this  earthly,  rarer  even  than  this  which 
seemed  already  beautiful  beyond  conception.  And 
so  as  she  passed  and  re-passed  she  carried  with  her  a 
very  radiance  of  adoration,  magnifying  the  work 
of  her  maker  and  giving  thanks  for  ever. 

12 

The  traditions  of  her  birth  and  training  were  very 
inconsistent  in  one  respect.  The  natural  beauty  of  the 
world  might  belong  to  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  for 
it  was  the  work  of  the  great  artificer  and  glorified 
his  power;  the  spirit  of  religion  breathed  in  the 
divine  freshness  of  the  morning,  green  and  blue  and 
gold ;  holiness  was  there  manifest,  and  to  lose  your- 
self in  contemplation  of  the  marvel  could  only  lead 
you  higher.  But  beauty  of  man's  creation,  the 
work  of  the  created,  lay  under  a  suspicion ;  it  must 
justify  itself,  the  presumption  was  against  its  purity 
and  sanctity  unless  it  was  explicit  in  its  lofty  pur- 
pose. It  is  an  old  story ;  I  cannot  but  think  that 
the  monkish  distrust  of  beauty  in  any  form,  the 
beauty  of  field  and  wood  like  any  other,  not  ex- 
pressly dedicated  to  the  service  of  the  most  high,  is 
a  more  reasonable  perversity.  Let  it  all  be  disgrace- 
ful together,  everything  that  enchants  the  eye  or 
the  ear  or  the  imagination — why  not?     But  still, 

49  E 


EARLHAM 

if  you  are  very  certain  of  the  badness  and  blackness 
of  man's  heart,  I  suppose  you  must  assume  that  the 
work  of  his  hands  is  tainted,  unless  it  bears  a  recog- 
nized phylactery;  and  you  may  believe  in  the 
innocence  of  a  bird  or  a  flower,  that  no  man  made, 
even  though  it  is  beautiful.  Only  man  is  vile — 
that  is  your  logic. 

But  if  you  intensely  and  affectionately  believe 
in  the  goodness  of  man's  heart,  in  the  Tightness  of 
his  intention — and  yet  the  old  mistrustful  tradition 
holds  you,  bidding  you  beware,  setting  you  on  your 
guard  in  the  presence  of  the  unsanctioned  fervour  of 
an  artist :  is  not  this  a  perverse  confusion  to  have 
drifted  into  ?  I  return  again  and  again  to  a  sense 
of  resentment,  not  indeed  personal,  that  people  like 
our  grandparents  should  have  been  impelled  to 
assure  themselves,  or  to  feel  that  they  ought  to  be 
assured,  of  something  dubious,  deceitful,  not  to  be 
trusted,  lurking  generally  within  the  soul  of  art. 
No  false  doctrine,  it  is  true,  can  greatly  matter  in 
the  lives  of  such  people;  because  their  own  true 
nature,  so  much  larger  than  the  teaching  imposed 
upon  it,  has  its  way  of  flouting  perversity  in  any 
form.  But  something  remains,  something  that 
checks  and  crosses  the  natural  impulse  of  a  spirit 
ardently  eager  and  awake.  The  imagination,  crying 
out  for  nourishment,  is  neglected,  discouraged; 
one's  private  world  does  not  get  its  due  enlargement. 

Our  grandmother's  quick  and  sympathetic  fancy, 
I  see,  was  never  finally  disheartened  by  such  treat- 
ment. It  was  always  ready  to  seize  a  chance  and  to 
carry  her  beyond  the  circle  of  ideas  and  emotions  of 
which  she  traditionally  approved.     Remembering 

50 


INDOORS 

the  recurring  scene  that  took  place  when  she  found 
herself  drawn  into  the  reading  of  a  book,  a  secular 
story-book,  I  understand  how  her  genius  must  have 
been  straining  towards  its  own.  Small  its  chances 
were,  but  it  clutched  them.  Secular  books  were 
never  conspicuous  at  Earlham ;  they  tended  to  hide 
in  our  uncles'  rooms,  to  turn  their  faces  to  the  wall, 
to  be  wrapped  in  non-committal  covers  of  paper; 
it  was  not  at  all  a  house  where  the  "  last  novel " 
would  Hghtly  lie  on  the  table.  But  now  and  then, 
perhaps,  one  of  them  would  happen  to  faU  in  the 
way  of  the  mistress  of  the  house ;  she  might  take  it 
up  to  glance  at  a  page,  half -protesting ;  and  then 
the  sequel  was  certain  and  well-known.  She  was 
absorbed,  she  was  lost;  late  as  it  might  be,  she 
would  run  through  the  story  and  finish  it  to  the  end 
before  she  slept.  She  was  an  active,  swift-glancing 
reader,  when  she  read ;  she  had  a  hand  and  eye  that 
seemed  pre-disposed  to  a  book,  hke  the  skill  of  a 
craftsman  bom.  She  turned  the  page  with  none  of 
the  cautious  or  painful  circumspection  of  those  who 
do  not  habitually  Uve  with  books,  who  read  as 
though  they  were  conscientiously  verifjdng  a  doubt- 
ful statement.  She  was  lost  until  she  had  finished 
the  book;  and  her  children  knew  well  the  gush  of 
indignation  in  her  voice,  next  morning,  when  her 
self-reproach,  the  thought  of  precious  wasted  hours, 
turned  to  rend  the  poor  book  and  its  author — such 
a  silly,  foolish  book,  worse  than  foolish,  snaring  one 
to  waste  time  upon  idle  trifles.  Small  indications — 
but  they  showed  how  an  imagination,  dihgently  dis- 
countenanced, would  still  live  on  and  watch  for  its 
opportunity  and  make  the  most  of  it;  with  that 

51 


E ARLH AM 

old  tradition,  the  invention  of  souls  successfully 
chilled  and  dulled,  always  at  hand  to  afflict  a  tender 
conscience  and  extort  its  payment. 

It  is  a  familiar  story  indeed ;  no  doubt  there  have 
always  been  opulent  natures  misfitted  by  the  beliefs 
and  opinions  of  smaller  folk.  Beliefs  that  had 
arisen  in  hearts  that  to  hers  were  as  the  crab-apple 
to  the  golden  apricot — ideas  that  could  no  more 
have  sprung  in  the  climate  of  her  life  than  dead-sea 
fruit  in  a  green  pasture — these  were  somehow  to  be 
kept  and  held  as  though  they  were  prompted  by 
inner  voices,  as  though  they  expressed  one's  deepest 
need.  Somehow  the  adjustment  was  to  be  made,  and 
so  made  that  one  should  never  even  notice  the  dis- 
crepancy oneself ;  the  submissive  heart  must  accept 
these  unlikely  intruders  and  be  convinced  that  they 
are  its  very  offspring.  And  as  for  being  so  convinced, 
it  would  seem  that  there  is  no  difficulty  in  that ;  never 
for  a  moment  could  such  a  spirit  as  this  of  which  I 
am  thinking  be  inclined  to  contradict,  to  question, 
to  disown  the  notions  so  foisted  upon  it.  Theoretic- 
ally you  are  limited  to  a  very  narrow  path,  and  it 
is  woe  to  those  without ;  theoretically  your  scheme 
of  faith  is  closely  bound  about,  and  its  edges  are 
terribly  decided.  But  after  all  it  is  to  be  seen  that 
nothing  on  earth  will  really  constrain  you,  will  be 
allowed  to  dictate  to  such  a  spirit  as  this ;  charity, 
warm  and  ripe,  instantly  oblivious  of  the  precepts 
it  has  accepted,  soars  above  them  and  escapes. 
Anima  naturaliter  Christiana — it  is  not  to  hold  or  to 
bind  by  jealous  and  timorous  devices.  The  most 
that  these  can  effect  is  now  and  then  to  distress  the 
Christian  conscience  with  a  needless,   unmerited 

52 


INDOORS 

pang.  It  is  the  triumph  of  the  meaner  souls — not  a 
great  one,  when  aU  is  said. 

^3 

Her  name  before  she  married  was  Laura  Pearse. 

She  was  one  of  several  sisters,  and  they  were  the 
daughters  of  an  old  gentleman  whose  legend  had 
long  fallen  dim  in  our  time ;  he  must  have  been  dead 
for  many  years.  Some  hint  in  an  anecdote  or  two, 
some  glimpse  of  a  mild  old  clergyman  sitting 
drowsily  acquiescent,  in  the  simplicity  of  extreme 
age,  is  connected  with  the  impression  of  the  drawing- 
room  at  Earlham  on  a  summer  afternoon — it  was 
great-grandfather  Pearse  who  sat  there,  and  I 
vaguely  see  him,  though  I  can  never  have  seen  him 
with  my  own  eyes.  In  his  last  years,  it  may  be,  his 
mind  and  memory  gently  failed  him  a  little;  I 
think  he  had  already  lost  his  remarkable  wife,  and 
he  might  come  to  Earlham  on  a  long  visit  to  his 
daughter.  Nodding  in  his  chair  in  the  drawing- 
room,  through  a  hot  afternoon,  he  would  forget  the 
hours,  and  might  almost,  one  would  suppose,  be 
himself  forgotten.  But  there  was  some  young 
member  of  the  family  told  off,  I  gather,  to  keep  him 
company;  he  wants  no  talk  or  entertainment,  but 
a  young  granddaughter  can  sit  with  her  sewing  in 
the  window-seat,  as  quiet  as  a  mouse,  and  be  ready 
to  read  to  him,  to  run  errands  for  him,  if  he  should 
rouse  himself  to  need  her.  So  there  she  sits,  and  I 
well  understand  that  as  the  sun  blazes  outside  and 
the  wood-pigeons  croon  in  the  oaks  by  the  west 
lawn,  and  in  the  room  the  hush  grows  deeper,  the 
old  man  placidly  reposing,  the  hours  are  long  and 

53 


E ARLH AM 

restless  for  the  girl  over  her  petticoat-hem  in  the 
window.  She  would  have  an  inkling  that  our 
beloved  grandmother,  in  her  fihal  piety,  would 
welcome  her  aged  father,  tend  him  and  care  for 
him,  be  the  truest  of  daughters — but  would  not, 
could  not  possibly,  sit  serenely  stitching  in  a  corner 
through  an  endless  afternoon,  while  her  father 
dreamed  and  drowsed  in  the  stillness.  So  much  as 
that  her  activity  could  not  endure ;  the  young  girl 
must  charge  herself  with  that  particular  duty; 
and  I  think  the  young  girl,  the  picture  of  obedience, 
will  be  clear  in  her  own  mind  that  her  elders  have 
shifted  a  task  upon  her  that  none  of  them  are  eager 
to  undertake. 

Well,  it  so  happened  that  outside  the  window 
where  she  sat  there  grew  an  old  greengage-tree, 
trained  against  the  wall ;  and  on  one  of  these  long 
afternoons  she  discovered  that  there  were  green- 
gages, bursting  ripe,  within  her  reach.  She  solaced 
her  vigil — and  so,  as  you  easily  see,  the  hour  took 
its  little  niche  in  her  memory  and  was  there,  years 
afterwards,  to  be  brought  out  and  told  as  a  story, 
in  thrilling  detail,  to  a  child.  By  means  of  those 
juicy  sun-cracked  greengages  a  vision  of  great- 
grandfather Pearse  was  transmitted ;  and  of  all  that 
he  said  and  did  and  was  in  the  world,  for  the  better 
part  of  a  century,  perhaps  that  single  somnolent 
hour  of  his  life  will  be  the  last  to  perish  entirely. 

He  had  had  a  very  remarkable  wife ;  and  as  for 
his  daughters,  the  picture  that  they  make,  issuing 
in  their  girlhood  from  their  modest  and  secluded 
corner  of  the  world,  is  one  that  always  strikes  me 
with  new  surprise.    A  plain  little  estabUshment  in 

54 


INDOORS 

the  Cathedral  Close  of  Norwich,  afterwards  trans- 
ferred to  a  village-rectory  far  out  in  the  country, 
an  inaccessible  mud-bound  village  near  the  Norfolk 
coast — and  a  simple  old  rector,  with  a  wife  and  a 
family  of  daughters :  you  see  the  picture  at  once,  it 
is  as  famiUar  as  daisies  on  the  green.  The  good 
father  of  the  flock,  the  mother  bustling  about 
among  the  cottage-wives,  the  rosy-cheeked  daugh- 
ters trudging  the  lanes  in  their  stout  boots — all 
these  you  know  by  heart,  you  cannot  mistake  them. 
And  scarcely  a  point  in  this  picture,  as  it  instantly 
forms  itself,  is  correct;  the  household  of  great- 
grandfather Pearse,  at  Martham  Rectory  three 
generations  ago,  was  different  and  odd  and  rare — 
and  I  wonder  whether  it  seemed  as  inexplicable  in 
its  time  as  it  does  to  me  now,  in  the  light  of  these 
days. 

Pretty,  fantastic,  paradoxical,  it  seems  to  me 
now ;  but  perhaps  it  did  not  then  affect  a  beholder 
as  unlikely.  It  was  not  so  very  strange,  perhaps, 
that  the  parson's  wife  in  a  lonely  inaccessible  village 
— most  inaccessible,  even  now — should  be  the  kind 
of  person  our  great-grandmother  was.  She  might 
have  been  a  stirring  woman  in  the  parish,  one  who 
directed  her  household  with  energy,  active  in 
kitchen  and  dairy,  setting  her  maids  to  the  spinning- 
wheel,  gossiping  with  a  crony  or  so  in  the  village, 
perhaps  at  feud  with  the  farmer's  wife,  perhaps 
nourishing  ambitions  for  her  daughters  and  culti- 
vating relations  with  the  local  gentry.  It  would 
have  been  a  thankless  field,  I  must  think,  for  energy 
and  ambition;  and  I  should  imagine  her  a  little 
toughened  and  roughened  by  the  struggle,  a  Uttle 

55 


E ARLH AM 

chafed  by  the  inevitable  hmitations  of  her  scope. 
What  could  she  do  in  such  a  desert  ?  How  could  she 
bend  the  age-long  immobility  of  her  surroundings 
to  her  busy  will  ?  Above  all,  what  could  she  do  in 
her  small  circumstances  with  a  troop  of  daughters, 
however  blooming?  A  losing,  losing  struggle, 
surely,  in  which  her  defeated  spirit  would  be  worn 
down,  keeping  only  enough  of  its  sharpness  to  be 
irritated  by  her  husband's  contented  acquiescence 
in  obscurity  and  poverty  and  monotony.  On  these 
lines  the  picture  fills  itself  with  abundance  of  detail. 
She  sat,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  in  her  small  drawing- 
room,  exquisite  and  elegant,  daintily  toying  with 
some  scrap  of  cobweb  needlework — she  reclined 
upon  a  spindle-legged  couch,  far  aloof  from  the  stir 
and  gossip  of  the  vulgar.  She  smiled  very  kindly 
upon  her  parish,  but  graciously,  distantly;  when 
she  stepped  forth,  on  occasion,  passed  down  the 
lane  and  entered  some  humble  village-parlour — 
swept  and  prepared  for  her  visit,  be  very  sure — 
she  was  like  one  who  confers  a  charming  favour,  and 
so  she  was  received.  Her  demeanour,  no  doubt, 
represented  the  natural  tribute  to  her  position  and 
to  that  of  her  rustic  friends;  on  both  sides  it  was 
understood,  I  take  it.  Such  was  the  right  mutual 
attitude  of  refinement  and  rusticity,  each  good  of  its 
kind,  each  injured  by  any  attempt  to  interfere  with 
the  appointed  order  of  things.  Respect  on  both 
sides,  familiarity  on  neither,  was  her  rule ;  and  it  is 
not  so  much  the  validity  of  the  rule  that  one  may 
question — it  may  be  a  very  good  one — as  the  mere 
fact  that  in  that  far  seclusion  it  should  be  possible 
to  hold  to  it  so  consistently.   There  is  a  magnificence 

56 


INDOORS 

beyond  all  probability — here  is  my  paradox — in 
that  power  to  shoulder  the  responsibility  of  high 
manners  all  alone  and  unaided,  with  nobody  to  see 
the  effect,  nobody  to  join  you  in  keeping  the  stand- 
ard at  that  high  level,  nobody  to  notice  if  you  let  it 
sink.  This  little  great-grandmother  carried  out  the 
tradition  she  knew  as  easily,  to  all  appearance,  in 
her  lonely  parsonage  as  she  might  have  maintained 
it  before  the  eyes  and  with  the  support  of  the  world. 
Perhaps  I  exaggerate  the  difficulty;  but  when  I 
think  of  her  rising,  day  after  day,  to  the  sight  of  the 
same  old  church-tower  and  the  sound  of  the  same 
farm-waggon  upon  the  road,  with  nothing  else  (one 
may  say)  to  think  of  till  next  morning,  I  can  only 
wonder  at  the  untouched  perfection  of  her  elegant 
style. 

So  she  reclined,  toying  with  her  scrap  of  embroid- 
ery and  adorned  with  scrupulous  nicety  of  lace  and 
lawn — a  rare  little  image  of  the  old  world.  She 
breathed  the  air  of  refinement,  perfumed  by  rose- 
leaves  in  blue-and- white  jars  on  a  lacquered  cabinet. 
Perhaps  after  breakfast,  delicately  equipping  herself 
for  the  task,  she  would  collect  the  Chinese  tea-cups 
with  fastidious  finger-tips  and  wash  them ;  to  that 
extent  a  gentlewoman  will  properly  take  a  share 
in  the  work  of  the  house.  Otherwise — what 
does  she  do  ?  Her  social  resources  are  few  indeed  in 
those  wilds.  Her  pride,  as  fine  as  her  porcelain, 
discriminates  sharply,  and  I  dare  say  her  manner 
towards  the  doctor's  wife,  and  the  farmer's  and  the 
schoolmaster's  (if  there  was  one),  has  more  than  a 
shade  of  condescension.  On  the  other  hand, 
imagine  her  horror  at  the  notion  of  pursuing  a  social 

57 


E ARLH AM 

ambition  in  higher  spheres — of  vulgarly  pushing 
one's  way  with  a  worldly  motive.  Besides  she  is  not 
rich,  her  movements  are  strictly  hmited.  On  the 
whole  she  sits  at  home ;  and  surely  there  must  be  a 
great  deal  of  unoccupied  time  upon  her  hands. 

Yes,  no  doubt ;  but  then  she  has  other  resources. 
She  lived  in  a  world  of  her  own,  a  world  of  roseate 
and  romantic  fancy,  a  kind  of  egg-shell  fairyland 
never  penetrated  by  the  common  prose  of  things. 
And  moreover  she  had  her  talents,  and  she  could  use 
them  for  an  admirable  purpose.  In  her  dainty, 
orderly  life  she  could  see  from  afar  the  dangers  of 
the  outer  world  and  its  dread  temptations ;  it  was 
laid  upon  her  to  shield  and  to  warn  the  exposed.  A 
worthy  work,  she  might  well  think  it,  to  devote  her 
gift  to  such  a  cause.  And  a  gift  she  had ;  she  could 
write  a  long  and  fairly  coherent  and  expressive 
romance,  full  of  lamentable  incident  that  illustrated 
the  deceitfulness  of  riches  and  the  doom  of  frivolity. 
I  think  she  did  not  write  more  than  one ;  but  one 
novel  makes  a  novelist,  after  all,  and  a  novelist  she 
became,  she  was,  she  remained.  Earthly  Idols, 
two  volumes  in  pink  cloth — it  was  the  story  of  a 
dreadfuUy  (but  justly)  afflicted  heroine,  who  set  her 
heart  upon  idols  of  clay,  who  saw  them  torn  from 
her  one  by  one,  and  who  perished  at  last,  she 
herself — ^with  a  heart,  I  hope  and  think,  finally 
chastened  and  purified — in  a  storm  at  sea.  Such 
at  least  would  seem  to  have  been  the  motive  in  the 
author's  imagination,  though  she  undermined  it  a 
little  by  faihng  to  impute,  from  the  beginning,  any 
touch  of  earthliness  to  her  Rosahe.  That  heroine 
had  always  a  spirit  so  pure  that  the  logic  of  her 

58 


INDOORS 

inexorable  punishment  is  not  clear;  the  novelist, 
I  suppose,  could  not  bring  herself  to  disparage  her 
lovely  Rosalie,  and  the  moral  had  to  suffer.  The 
high  purpose  is  plain,  nevertheless ;  the  very  profits 
of  the  sale  (but  there  may  have  been  none)  were 
dedicated  in  advance  to  the  enlightenment  of  the 
heathen. 

I  Uke  to  think  of  the  authoress,  bending  gracefully 
over  her  manuscript  in  her  tiny  drawing-room,  her 
neat  little  hand  moving  smoothly  over  the  pages. 
It  is  a  perfectly  urbane  and  civiUzed  picture,  but 
quite  out  of  place  in  that  rather  forlorn  setting  of 
Martham  village.  The  outer  edges  of  Norfolk  can 
be  dreary,  in  the  barer  regions  towards  the  sea. 
You  reach  Martham  after  leaving  everything  else 
behind,  and  only  then;  it  is  a  cluster  of  cottages 
round  a  straggling  green,  and  the  diminutive 
parsonage  stands  under  the  morning  shadow  of  a 
great  square  church-tower.  A  gaunt  and  dilapi- 
dated old  pile  the  church  must  have  been,  when 
Earthly  Idols  was  composed  in  its  shadow;  and 
the  village  had  no  picturesque  attraction.  The  sea- 
wind  whines,  though  the  sea  is  not  in  sight.  As 
autumn  darkened  and  the  mist  rose  and  the  mud 
deepened,  it  must  have  seemed  a  place  of  far  exile, 
one  would  say,  for  a  creature  so  dehcately  formed 
and  finished.  Did  she  never,  on  mornings  of  steely 
east  wind,  in  long  waiUng  nights  of  storm,  feel  a 
pang  of  rebeUion,  reaching  out  in  spirit  to  the 
humaner  world  for  which  she  was  so  suitably  gifted  ? 
Instead,  she  had  only  her  stumping,  drawhng  con- 
gregation, immitigably  bucohc.  Who  was  there  to 
recognize  and  appreciate  her  style  ? 

59 


EARLHAM 

There  were  at  least  her  children  and  her  grand- 
children, and  she  deeply  touched  their  imagination. 
She  lived  on  and  on  in  their  memory,  long  after  she 
was  under  the  turf  of  the  churchyard,  as  a  little  fine 
model  of  bearing  and  adornment,  never  to  be  sur- 
passed in  its  kind.  Elegance  is  very  attractive  to 
the  young,  and  they  take  it  most  seriously;  the 
sight  of  it  works  powerfully  in  the  stirring  and 
forming  of  a  small  fancy.  Our  great-grandmother  of 
the  trim  thatched  parsonage  is  still  the  impersona- 
tion of  gentility  for  her  descendants.  Always 
perfect  in  her  ways  and  habits,  she  looks  watchfully, 
critically,  upon  the  behaviour  of  the  children  round 
her  and  instils  her  principles  of  gracious  deportment. 
They  are  scarcely  those,  perhaps,  of  the  thatched 
parsonage  of  to-day;  not  there  would  a  young 
granddaughter  now  sit  over  her  darning  or  her 
hemming,  intent  upon  dealing  with  it  in  business- 
like style,  and  hear  the  voice  of  her  grandmother  in 
expostulation,  silvery- tinkling — "  Not  like  that, 
dear,  not  so  earnestly;  you  should  play  with  it, 
dear,  play  with  it!  " — while  she  illustrates  the  right 
style  of  negligent  grace  with  little  easy  flourishes  of 
her  own  needle,  lightly  hovering  over  her  ornamen- 
tal scrap  of  white  gossamer. 

14 
But  that  was  long  ago ;  it  is  all  legend  and  tradi- 
tion. I  come  back  to  our  own  day  and  to  the 
hushed  and  darkened  drawing-room  at  Earlham, 
where  the  blinds  are  pulled  down  against  the  after- 
noon blaze.  There  is  a  light  bitter-sweet  fragrance 
from  the  phloxes  in  the  strangely  mixed  bouquet, 

60 


INDOORS 

feathered  with  asparagus,  which  stands  in  the  middle 
of  the  round  table — where  the  lamp  stands  in  the 
evening.  Long  ago  the  old  man  of  whom  I  have 
spoken  sat  and  slumbered  here,  while  the  girl  hung 
out  of  window  to  reach  the  greengages  on  the  wall. 
But  the  old  man  is  dead,  he  is  a  story  of  the  past ; 
and  his  granddaughter  now  tells  it  to  a  pair  of 
children,  small  cousins  of  hers,  who  beset  her  with 
their  demands.  Tales  of  her  childhood — ^we  wanted 
more  and  more  of  them ;  but  chiefly  we  wanted  the 
same  anecdotes,  two  or  three,  over  and  over  again — 
and  in  the  exact  original  form,  which  we  could 
always  supply  (and  still  could,  I  should  think,  to- 
day) if  our  cousin's  memory  faltered.  Our  demands 
followed  her  everywhere,  at  all  times  of  day;  and 
when  she  was  "  dressing  for  dinner  "  it  was  the  best 
chance  of  all.  Then  we  were  free  from  interruption. 
I  discern  a  child  who  stands  by  the  dressing-table  in 
the  tiny  Chintz  Room,  fingering  the  pin-cushion  and 
the  brushes,  listening  enthralled. 

These  stories  became  dramas,  brilliantly  visual, 
as  our  cousin  told  them.  Brushing  and  plaiting  her 
long  rich  hair,  she  picked  up  the  details  of  the  scene, 
found  nobly  descriptive  words  for  them,  hung 
thrillingly  upon  her  climax ;  and  when  she  reached 
it,  with  a  gesture  of  her  brush  or  her  handful  of 
hair-pins  she  would  act  it  to  the  life — the  listener 
throbbed  with  satisfaction.  They  were  beautiful 
stories,  not  so  much  for  their  stirring  incident  as  for 
the  sharp  actuality  of  their  setting.  An  incident  has 
no  value  in  itself,  it  is  exactly  as  interesting  as  the 
artist  can  make  it;  and  this  cousin  was  an  artist 
indeed.     Ah,   that  strange  wild  comedy  of  the 

6i 


EARLHAM 

tapioca  pudding — the  plate-full  of  loathsome  jellied 
lumps  that  had  been  placed  before  her,  a  well- 
behaved  child,  and  that  suddenly,  swiftly,  she  had 
tilted  with  one  turn  of  her  hand  into  the  napkin 
upon  her  lap ;  she  was  lunching  out,  you  see,  and  it 
was  a  critical  occasion,  and  she  was  on  her  best 
behaviour;  but  the  strange  deed  was  done  in  a 
flash,  and  nobody  noticed — ^it  is  a  fact.  She  was  able 
to  conceal  the  warm  sagging  mass,  carry  it  out  and 
bury  it  in  the  garden  afterwards ;  and  by  the  time 
when  she  reached  the  burial  in  the  shrubbery 
emotion  had  risen  and  surged  and  toppled  over  in  a 
gurgle  of  the  listener's  approval — she  had  told  the 
story  just  as  she  had  told  it  before,  in  its  classical 
form,  and  on  the  whole,  among  many  good,  it  was 
surely  her  very  best. 

The  Chintz  Room  was  minute ;  it  just  fitted  into 
one  of  the  gables  in  the  oldest  part  of  the  house — 
the  gable,  curved  and  scrolled,  which  carried  the 
date  of  the  battle  of  Edgehill.  It  was  a  tiny  room 
without  a  fire-place,  and  the  small-paned  casement 
window  almost  filled  one  side  of  it.  You  craned  up 
and  stood  on  tiptoe  to  search  the  cracks  and 
crevices  of  the  window-sill ;  for  there  was  always  a 
rumour  that  a  beast,  a  centipede,  had  once  walked 
out  of  one  of  them,  straggling  on  all  its  feet,  to  the 
proper  horror  of  our  cousin  who  occupied  the  room. 
It  would  be  a  triumph  to  entice  it  forth  again ;  but 
that  was  not  necessary — you  had  only  to  cry  that 
you  had  caught  sight  of  it,  just  for  a  moment,  and 
our  dear  cousin  was  ready  with  brilliant  shrieks  of 
dismay.  It  was  well  worth  while  to  repeat  the  scare, 
several  times.     Or  again  you  could  stand  by  the 

62 


INDOORS 

table,  mounted  upon  a  stool,  and  turn  the  pages  of 
the  Httle  fat  leather  volume,  her  hymn-book ;  and 
let  me  state  the  fact  plainly,  it  was  in  that  volume 
that  this  present  author  first  found  a  page,  a  printed 
page,  turn  intelligible  to  the  eye;  it  seemed  to 
happen  in  a  minute,  after  all  that  useless  grind  over 
spelling-books  and  such-Uke  at  home.  I  could 
read,  it  appeared ;  some  magic  had  operated.  But 
what  a  beautiful  picture  of  the  child,  balanced  upon 
the  footstool  by  the  dressing-table,  reading  "  Once  in 
royal  David's  city  "  out  aloud,  so  confidently,  so 
piously — if  it  fails  to  strike  another  as  charming,  I 
assure  you  it  struck  the  child.  A  warm  and  satis- 
factory sense  of  holiness,  the  kind  of  solemn  aura 
that  hangs  about  the  children  in  a  Sunday-book — 
could  one  pretend  to  be  unconscious  of  this,  for  all 
one's  proper  meekness  ?  One  could  only  hope  that 
it  was  not  unobserved ;  and  I  dare  say  indeed  that 
the  brightly  glancing  young  lady,  brushing  out  the 
long  golden  coils  of  her  hair,  observed  and  smiled. 
The  window  of  the  Chintz  Room  looked  away  to 
the  last  of  the  sunset,  and  in  the  long  twiUght, 
fading  at  last,  the  tiny  chamber  grew  grey  and  dim. 
It  had  earned  its  name,  I  suppose,  in  ancestral  days ; 
there  was  no  shine  or  crackle  of  chintz  there  in  our 
time,  only  some  discoloured  shabbiness  of  limp 
damask.  The  Green  Room,  next  door,  had  equally 
outlived  its  name;  but  the  Green  Room,  at  this 
uncertain  hour,  was  fuU  of  dark  shadow,  and  its 
colour  was  quenched  in  ominous  depths.  It  seemed 
as  mysterious  as  a  cavern,  rather  long  and  low ;  the 
oblong  of  the  triple  window,  at  the  further  end,  was 
wreathed  about  with  heavy  leafage,  black  by  this 

63 


E ARLHAM 

time  in  the  solemn  evening.  Out  there  the  night 
was  gathering  quickly.  The  Green  Room,  like  most 
of  the  rooms  at  Earlham,  was  full  of  troubling  doors, 
concealing  cupboards  and  recesses  like  vaults.  On 
no  account  open  that  one,  to  the  left;  something 
might  easily  steal  behind  you  as  you  did  so,  thrust 
you  into  the  blackness  and  bolt  the  door  upon  you ; 
reason  is  shaken  at  the  thought.  But  this  one  to 
the  right — fling  it  open  and  see.  It  might  lead  into 
just  another  dark  pit ;  but  you  get  a  pleasing  sur- 
prise. The  western  twilight  meets  you;  the  door 
leads  into  a  Uttle  dressing-room,  a  powder-closet, 
that  fills  the  second  of  the  two  ancient  gables ;  here 
there  is  still  a  remnant  of  day,  sinking  beyond  the 
distant  river,  down  there  in  the  park,  and  the  low 
swell  of  the  trees  on  the  sky-line.  The  mist  creeps 
and  crawls  in  streamers  up  the  slope  from  the  river. 
Night  is  upon  us,  and  very  soon  there  resounds 
through  the  house  the  booming  crescendo  of  the 
dinner-gong. 

So  the  company  and  the  quality  drew  together 
and  departed  to  their  meal,  their  "  late  dinner  " ; 
and  the  tone  of  the  upper  regions  of  the  house  was 
changed.  It  must  have  been  nearly  bed-time,  but 
there  seem  to  have  been  delays  and  interludes.  A 
spirit  of  merry  informality  ranged  about  the  pas- 
sages, and  I  catch  sight  of  the  bright  faces  of  the 
ministering  maids  at  their  work,  passing  from  room 
to  room.  The  passages  were  dimly  lighted  with  a 
very  small  oil-lamp  in  a  corner,  here  and  there ;  the 
maids  had  their  flat  brass  candle-sticks,  with  snuffers 
and  flaring  tapers  of  tallow.  One  follows  them 
about,  hilariously  helping  and  hindering,  and  of 

64 


INDOORS 

course  it  is  an  interlude  to  be  protracted  by  all 
possible  arts.  To  the  nursery,  however,  one  must 
presently  gravitate ;  and  there,  perhaps,  our  grand- 
mother's body-maid  sits  by  this  time  with  her  work- 
basket  under  the  lamp.  More  talk,  more  human 
gaiety — ^but  it  cannot  last  much  longer;  and  then 
one  is  shelved  out  of  sight  once  more,  put  away  in 
the  blank  silence  of  the  Eleven-sided  Room. 

15 
How  the  days  revolve — they  are  always  ending  in 
painful  shadow,  always  beginning  in  a  dance  and 
flutter  of  sunshine;  and  yet  they  are  endless  too, 
with  vast  unbroken  tracts  of  occupation  between 
waking  and  sleeping.  There  was  a  rhythm  of  life 
that  oscillated  from  the  nursery,  the  upper  rooms 
and  our  dear  friends  at  work  there — from  these  to 
the  other  world,  the  world  of  our  grandparents  and 
uncles  and  cousins,  and  back  again.  The  swing  of 
the  day  was  now  in  this  direction,  now  in  that — 
with  the  bright  attic-room  in  the  top  passage,  and 
the  welcome  of  the  loving  old  nurse  with  her  soft 
eyes  and  cheeks,  as  the  centre  where  everything 
converged  and  met.  That  was  a  spot  by  itself, 
where  all  movement  flowed  and  was  stilled,  all 
interests  were  mingled.  But  elsewhere  a  child,  free, 
and  so  very  free,  of  both  worlds,  distinguished 
clearly  between  the  two ;  each  had  its  own  fine  zest 
and  savour.  Nobody  could  say  that  one  was  better 
or  less  good  than  another,  where  both  were  so  richly 
endowed ;  and  nobody  could  think  of  them  save  as 
utterly  distinct  and  diverse. 

Could  I  not  mark  the  very  point  of  transition? 

65  F 


EARLHAM 

I  can  easily  do  so  by  beginning  from  the  moment 
when  we  sHp  out  of  the  big  dining-room,  leaving  our 
elders  still  over  their  breakfast.  The  heavy  door 
swings  in  my  hand,  while  the  mild  voice  of  our 
grandfather  is  heard  calling  down  the  table  to  ask 
whether  any  one  is  "  going  in  "  this  morning  (to 
Norwich,  that  is) ;  and  then  the  door  shuts  behind 
me,  as  that  door  always  would,  with  its  peculiar  soft 
thunder,  echoing  along  the  bit  of  curved  passage 
that  leads  to  the  hall.  Full  of  light,  hung  with 
engravings  of  clerical  portraits  and  an  old  print  of 
Norwich  city  with  its  church-towers,  this  short 
corridor  bends  into  the  hall,  deserted  for  the 
moment;  and  quickly  we  are  upon  the  shallow 
stair-case  and  sidling  up  its  low  wooden  balustrade. 
One  flight,  another,  and  then  there  is  a  landing,  and 
a  vista  before  you  of  a  long  dim  passage,  with  a 
window  at  the  far-away  end  of  it.  But  here  on  the 
open  landing  I  can  Unger,  I  can  loiter  and  stare  into 
the  glass  cases  of  stuffed  birds,  several  of  them,  tier 
upon  tier — young  owls  crowding  and  peering  out 
of  a  hole  in  a  mossy  tree-trunk,  a  colony  of  ruffs  and 
reeves,  a  pair  of  great  herons,  best  of  all,  arching 
their  necks  over  a  family  of  alert-eyed  nestlings. 
Can  I  ever  pass  these  striking  creatures  without 
stopping  to  examine  them  one  by  one,  deepening  the 
pleasant  impression  of  their  looks  and  attitudes, 
though  I  have  long  known  them  all  by  heart  ?  And 
then  in  a  trice — here  is  a  friend  with  her  brooms  and 
dusters,  appearing  out  of  the  dim  passage  and 
turning  into  one  of  the  bed-rooms  with  the  mirthful 
flash  of  a  smile  at  us ;  and  the  oddest  change  takes 
place  in  the  mood  of  life.    Down  in  the  dining-room 

66 


INDOORS 

it  was  all  very  gay  and  interesting — but  even  peril- 
ously interesting,  one  might  feel ;  there  is  always  an 
element  of  the  unaccountable  in  one's  elders,  so 
it  would  seem,  and  something  fearful  in  the  confi- 
dence and  readiness  of  their  jesting  talk;  it  is 
great,  but  there  is  a  touch,  a  tang,  as  Browning  says, 
of  something  that  is  not  wholly  ease.  Above-stairs, 
on  the  other  hand,  hanging  upon  our  friend's  skirt 
while  she  sprinkles  the  passage-floor  with  damp  tea- 
leaves  and  brooms  them  before  her  like  sea-weed  on 
a  beach — ^who  can  deny  that  there  is  here  a  strain  of 
freedom  to  which  one  returns  with  relief  ?  Above- 
stairs,  after  all,  there  is  a  Bohemian  fling  of  jollity 
and  levity  which  nobody  can  fail  to  appreciate; 
this  is  no  mere  brilliant  spectacle,  it  is  life  itself. 

In  a  society  so  humane  as  that  of  the  household 
at  Earlham  a  child  could  expand,  unfold,  find  free 
and  independent  expression.  It  is  part  of  a  liberal 
education,  and  the  company  in  the  drawing-room 
and  the  dining-room  can  never  quite  supply  it.  The 
life  of  our  elders  is  really  a  performance,  a  show  for 
our  benefit ;  we  look  on  with  delight,  and  yet  there 
seems  to  be  a  need  of  self-protection.  You  cannot 
give  yourself  entirely  away;  for  even  to  the  most 
benevolent  of  uncles  and  cousins  you  are  a  child,  a 
member  of  the  class  of  children.  Perfect  freedom 
begins  when  you  stand  completely  on  your  own  feet, 
an  individual  being.  And  that  is  what  you  become, 
once  among  these  friends  upstairs ;  the  change  is  un- 
mistakable. You  take  your  own  line,  you  crack  your 
own  jokes,  you  say  what  you  think;  and  the  only 
drawback  is  that  now  and  then  you  are  tempted 
above  yourself,   you  try  to   be  funnier  still,  and 

67 


E ARLH AM 

then  everything  goes  strangely  wrong.  A  moment 
ago  it  was  all  brave  and  splendid  with  adventurous 
humour ;  and  now  a  chill  strikes  in,  a  kind  of  forlorn- 
ness,  against  which  you  struggle  reckless  and  loud. 
But  it  is  vain ;  the  humour  of  the  scene  is  scraped 
and  rasped,  it  ends  in  exasperation.  That  happens 
occasionally,  and  then,  no  doubt,  you  feel  the 
attraction  of  order  and  style,  in  scenes  where  the  art 
of  living  is  thoroughly  mastered  and  controlled.  It 
is  social  training,  however,  all  of  it  together,  and 
you  cannot  afford  to  miss  the  experience  of  either 
world. 

i6 
The  art  of  living,  I  always  felt,  was  magnificently 
practised  by  our  uncles.  There  were  not  a  few  of 
them,  and  the  house  would  have  been  incomplete 
indeed  without  the  sound  of  their  striding  steps 
about  the  passages.  They  came  and  went,  some  or 
others  of  them  were  always  at  Earlham  as  I  think 
of  the  place.  In  later  years  I  discovered  that  they 
were  young,  but  in  those  early  days  they  were 
tremendously  mature  and  manly,  and  it  was  clear 
to  us  that  their  youth  was  far  behind  them.  They 
were  twenty,  five-and-twenty,  thirty  years  old 
perhaps;  but  there  is  no  count  of  ages  upon  the 
plane  of  maturity,  none  is  older  or  younger  than 
another.  Above  them,  in  quite  a  different  category, 
is  the  plane  of  extreme  old  age,  where  our  grand- 
parents were;  they,  I  suppose,  might  be  on  the 
further  side  of  sixty.  On  the  ordinary,  intervening 
levels  of  grown-up  life  the  question  does  not  arise ; 
every  one  has  ceased  to  be  young,  no  one  can 
imaginably  grow  old. 

68 


INDOORS 

I  do  not  wish  to  deny  that  I  was  afraid  of  our 
uncles;  I  would  not  assertively  have  crossed  their 
paths,  not  for  a  large  reward.  When  one  of  them 
came  tramping  mightily  down  the  passage,  with  a 
round  Shakespearian  troUing  of  song  and  laughter, 
I  should  wish  to  make  myself  very  small  indeed,  to 
slip  round  a  corner,  out  of  sight,  with  a  casual  air. 
There  is  no  need  to  be  ashamed  of  the  impulse ;  it  is 
not  a  weakly,  unimaginative  fear.  It  is  rather  the 
sense  of  a  great  deficiency,  a  want  of  presence  and 
weight  and  stature,  moral  rather  than  physical. 
If  the  Great  Mogul  came  suddenly  swinging  into  the 
room,  with  kindly  careless  patronage  and  a  gleam 
of  ironic  mockery,  should  you  feel  entirely  at  ease, 
ready  to  answer  back  with  freedom  ?  Not  so — you 
would  find  yourself  embarrassed,  thinly  giggling 
and  tittering,  and  it  would  be  a  relief  when  the 
splendid  visitor  lounged  away  and  left  you  to 
yourself. 

But  if  it  should  be  possible  to  watch  the  play  of 
so  much  humour  and  experience  from  some  safe 
entrenchment,  to  look  on  unseen,  at  any  rate  un- 
remarked— then  indeed  the  opportunity  would  be 
seized  and  enjoyed.  There  must  always,  as  I  said, 
be  some  slight  thrill  of  risk  in  the  exposure  to  such 
a  spectacle,  for  these  elemental  forces  are  incal- 
culable. It  is  well  worth  an  occasional  discomfiture, 
however,  to  have  the  sight  of  our  uncles  in  their 
leisure,  when  the  hail  of  their  wit  is  falling  upon 
each  other,  or  when  they  are  brilliantly  attacking 
and  rallying  their  parents.  It  is  beyond  belief  how 
entertaining  they  can  be.  At  luncheon,  especially 
— for  of  course  we  lunch  with  our  elders  in  the 

69 


E ARLH AM 

dining-room — there  are  times  when  the  amusement 
is  an  ecstasy ;  nobody  would  guess  how  deeply  the 
rapture  of  appreciation  is  flooding  the  listener's 
soul,  screened  behind  a  pair  of  staring  eyes  that 
travel  intently  from  speaker  to  speaker.  Perhaps 
it  is  betrayed  now  and  then  by  an  uncontrollable 
escape  of  laughter,  but  generally  it  is  too  full  for 
sound;  laughter  is  distracting,  and  the  whole  of 
one's  attention  is  swallowed  by  the  scene.  Years 
and  years  afterwards  it  is  as  new  in  the  memory  as 
ever ;  the  light  words  that  were  thrown  to  and  fro 
by  a  party  of  genial  young  men  in  hoHday  mood, 
carelessly  thrown  and  forgotten — not  one  of  them 
is  lost ;  they  were  engraved  for  good  and  all  upon 
adamantine  tables,  the  mind  of  a  child. 

As  I  slipped  out  of  the  dining-room  just  now, 
along  the  short  curve  of  the  passage  where  the 
clerical  portraits  clattered  on  the  wall  in  the  summer 
breeze,  I  passed  the  door  of  the  school-room,  so 
called,  the  room  where  in  these  days  our  uncles 
smoked  and  congregated  and  trailed  their  long  legs 
over  the  chairs.  If  the  door  is  open  I  catch  the 
pleasant  old  staleness  of  tobacco  which  always 
lingered  there — there,  and  nowhere  else  in  the 
house — and  a  glimpse  of  the  negligent  masculine 
litter  of  books,  papers,  pipes,  upon  the  square  table 
and  the  window-seats.  You  drop  down  a  step  as 
you  enter;  it  is  a  small  wainscoted  parlour,  with 
its  woodwork  glazed  and  grained  in  the  perverse 
manner  that  ruled  throughout  the  house.  This, 
I  see,  was  the  room  in  which  the  author  of  Lavengro 
was  entertained,  long  ago,  by  old  Joseph  John ;  it 
must  have  been  this  room,  though  in  fact  it  has  two 

70 


INDOORS 

windows,  and  no  old  elm  can  ever  have  shaded 
them  from  without.  They  open  on  to  a  slip  of 
flower-garden,  enclosed  between  the  two  wings  of 
the  dining-room  and  the  drawing-room;  and  in 
morning  hours,  before  the  sun  is  on  this  side  of  the 
house,  a  fresh  fragrance  of  dewiness  and  earthiness 
floats  into  the  room,  mingUng  with  the  tobacco- 
smoke. 

But  I  am  far,  I  need  not  say,  from  making  free 
with  this  sanctum  of  our  uncles ;  not  without  special 
encouragement  should  I  go  plumping  down  that 
step  from  the  passage  into  the  school-room.  I  waver 
about  in  the  ofhng  when  our  grandmother  looks  in 
upon  them  with  an  affectionate  glance  and  word, 
takes  the  opportunity  of  opening  a  window  (shut 
again,  no  doubt,  when  her  back  is  turned),  and 
protests,  in  answer  to  an  enquiry,  that  she  is  really 
resting  in  her  room.  "  What  was  that  we  heard 
about  your  resting  after  lunch  ?  "  She  would  smile 
back  upon  the  demand  with  a  tender  admiring  look 
at  the  large  soldier-son,  severely  confronting  her. 
"  Yes,  dear,  I  am  resting!  " — but  her  eye  would 
be  caught  by  a  table  to  be  tidied,  a  chair  to  be 
shifted,  and  she  would  pause  and  begin  to  occupy 
herself.  Doing  other  people's  work  for  them,  as 
usual,  when  she  ought  to  be  resting — that  was  a 
frequent  charge;  her  sons  would  not  be  slow  to 
intercept  her.  If  the  books  were  all  on  the  floor 
and  a  pair  of  coffee-cups  in  an  arm-chair,  it  was 
where  they  were  meant  to  be;  she  was  on  no 
account  to  move  them.  Foiled,  amused,  tenderly 
smihng,  she  would  pass  out ;  and  nobody  supposed 
that  she  would  reach  her  room  without  bethinking 

71 


EARLHAM 

herself  of  this  or  that  undone,  to  be  attended  to  on 
the  spot.  She  would  next  be  discovered,  it  was 
likely,  in  the  "  poor  people's  cupboard  " — a  scrap 
of  a  room,  upstairs,  given  over  to  a  store  of  blankets 
and  shawls  and  petticoats — rummaging  out  a  gift 
for  the  bed-ridden  old  friend  she  would  be  visiting 
that  afternoon. 

She  was  incorrigible,  she  always  escaped  the 
vigilance  of  her  sons;  but  they  were  unremitting. 
On  Sundays  in  particular,  in  the  long  hot  summer 
evening,  the  question  of  church-going  was  acute. 
The  family  party,  as  I  happen  to  see  it,  is  scattered 
about  in  the  coolness  of  the  hall,  watchful  to  see 
that  our  grandmother,  if  she  will  go  journeying  off 
through  the  level  blaze  to  Colney  church,  shall  at 
least  take  the  carriage  and  drive  thither.  "  Too  hot, 
too  hot  for  you  to  walk,"  they  say ;  "  and  why  not 
stay  at  home  under  the  trees  ?  "  That  couldn't  be ; 
but  she  made  the  concession  of  taking  the  carriage, 
promising  herself  to  justify  it  by  stopping  on  the 
way  to  pick  up  infirm  old  Mrs.  Brown  or  weak-kneed 
old  Mrs.  Giles,  for  the  treat  of  evening  service.  So 
she  drove  away,  and  the  family  loitered  in  idleness ; 
and  presently,  of  all  surprising  sights,  there  was 
the  carriage  returning,  just  when  service  would  be 
beginning,  with  our  grandmother  still  in  it.  I  hear 
the  note  of  triumph  from  her  sons  as  she  re-joined 
the  party — she  had  thought  better  of  it,  then !  It 
was  quite  a  little  gay  scene  while  she  explained; 
poor  old  Mrs.  Giles  had  said  No,  she  didn't  want  to 
go  to  church,  not  at  all — and  that  good  Eliza  Cope- 
man,  a  reliable  vocahst,  had  been  found  already 
there  in  her  place,  prepared  to  lead  the  hymns — - 

72 


INDOORS 

"  and  so  I  came  back,"  said  our  grandmother,  and 
the  moment  is  fixed  in  my  mind  by  the  light  pretty 
chime  of  self-satisfaction  in  her  voice,  conscious  as 
she  is  that  she  has  obeyed  her  children's  wish,  and 
yet  obeyed  it  in  her  own  way,  by  a  free  decision. 
So  everybody  is  pleased,  and  one  of  our  uncles 
sends  her  into  a  ripple  of  mirth  by  his  rich  enact- 
ment of  old  Mrs.  Giles — ^but  indeed  I  must  let  the 
momentary  jest  lie  quiet,  after  the  third  part  of  a 
century.  It  is  too  small  to  bring  from  so  far,  though 
I  possess  it  intact. 

17 

I  seem  to  have  wandered  over  most  of  the  house, 
but  I  have  rather  carefully  kept  away  from  a  part 
of  it.  I  never  knew  such  a  house  for  refusing  to  fit 
compactly  into  the  space  between  its  waUs  and  the 
roof  and  the  ground ;  the  inhabited  rooms  appear  to 
overflow  it  in  some  quarters,  and  to  fall  strangely 
short  in  others.  How  was  it,  for  example,  that  the 
pleasant  scullery,  which  lay  far  away  in  the  out- 
buildings of  the  back-yard,  had  doubled  and  screwed 
itself  round  so  sharply  that  its  window  looked  full 
into  the  flower-beds  by  the  garden-door?  It  was 
impossible  to  make  the  building,  as  you  explored  it 
within,  square  with  its  aspect  from  without;  and 
while  at  one  end  the  scullery  behaved  like  a  house 
through  the  looking-glass,  at  the  other  there  were 
whole  regions  that  were  lost,  that  bulked  largely  in 
the  outer  structure  and  disappeared  when  you 
sought  them  indoors. 

I  happen  to  know,  however,  where  a  part  of  them 
are  to  be  found.    There  would  be  many  a  morning 

73 


EARLH AM 

when  I  chance  to  be  hovering  betimes  about  the 
hall,  while  the  butler  and  his  underling  are  setting 
out  the  benches  for  prayers ;  and  then  I  get  a  sight 
of  the  great  grey  Bluebeard  chamber  from  which 
they  are  brought  forth.  Stone  steps,  behind  a  door 
in  the  corner  by  the  wide  fire-place,  lead  downward 
into  this  lost  abode.  It  cannot  be  called  a  cellar, 
for  it  has  a  window  above  the  level  of  the  geranium 
border  outside ;  but  the  light  that  trickles  in  there 
is  spare  and  sour  with  dust,  and  whenever  you 
venture  down  the  stone  steps  you  feel  as  though 
you  were  the  first  to  stumble  upon  a  forgotten 
apartment,  sealed  and  abandoned  long  ago  for  a 
sufficient  reason.  It  would  not  surprise  me  to  find 
it  hung  with  threadbare  finery,  and  a  table  covered 
with  the  mouldering  remains  of  a  wedding-feast, 
and  even  a  gaunt  old  figure  in  a  bridal  veil  and 
yellowing  satin  at  the  head  of  it ;  not  for  nothing 
have  I  read  of  Miss  Havisham,  in  that  first  thrill  of 
a  plunge  into  the  world  of  Dickens,  and  she  readily 
takes  her  place  in  the  lathe-room.  It  was  called 
the  lathe-room ;  one  of  our  uncles  or  great-uncles, 
I  suppose,  had  once  fitted  it  as  a  work-shop.  But 
now  it  was  only  a  store-room,  a  wilderness  of  old 
lumber,  made  sinister  by  the  grey  twilight  and  the 
silent  chill  that  reigned  there  even  at  highest  noon ; 
and  the  very  thought  of  the  dim  unexplained 
objects,  piled  up,  standing  there  in  that  fallen  day, 
has  an  influence  that  strikes  me  solemn. 

Moreover  it  could  not  escape  me  that  this  tomb- 
like space  was  only  the  beginning  of  a  whole  range 
of  such  apartments.  There  was  still  a  large  quarter 
of  the  house,  the  big  panelled  ante-room  and  the 

74 


INDOORS 

arm  of  the  drawing-room  beyond  it,  which  actually 
had  no  inhabited  ground-floor  at  all;  and  fancy 
runs  riot  in  picturing  the  derelict  saloons  and 
galleries  that  may  yawn  beneath  the  floor  we  tread. 
There  is  room  for  I  know  not  how  many  secret 
chambers,  hidden  away  in  echoing  blackness; 
nothing  betrays  them  outside,  for  in  this  quarter 
a  couple  of  apparent  windows,  facing  upon  the 
gravel-sweep  of  the  front  door,  prove  to  be  blank 
and  blind,  glass  panes  with  only  the  darkened  wall 
behind  them.  I  can  imagine  what  I  please,  there- 
fore— I  could  then  and  I  still  can,  for  I  find  that 
to  the  last  I  never  penetrated  the  mystery  of  those 
forgotten  spaces. 

But  rather  let  me  turn  to  more  comfortable 
associations — to  the  sun-bright  scullery,  perhaps, 
where  such  remarkable  operations  were  conducted, 
the  groundwork  of  Mrs.  Chapman's  beautiful  art. 
The  children  looked  on,  no  doubt,  with  clear-eyed 
interest  while  her  hand-maids  set  her  palette,  as  you 
may  say,  prepared  the  raw  material  for  her  creative 
touch.  They  plucked  and  chopped,  they  hacked 
and  scraped — so  it  comes  back  to  me;  the  lovely 
dish  on  the  table  in  the  dining-room  has  a  strange 
past  behind  it,  if  you  knew,  full  of  bald  and  uncom- 
promising detail.  I  could  mention  a  few  facts  in  the 
history  of  the  roast  chicken  off  which  we  lunch — 
but  it  is  odd  how  people  prefer  to  blink  these  things. 
Surely  it  is  interesting  to  know  that  when  Maggie 
is  going  to  cook  a  chicken  she  first  plucks  it,  then 

she  scoops  out  its and  that  is  as  far  as  I  get 

in  the  story,  when  I  produce  it  at  the  luncheon- 
table,  for  my  squeamish  elders  set  up  a  hoot  that 

75 


E ARLH AM 

cuts  me  short.  She  does,  anyhow ;  and  I  can  watch 
her  with  absorption  while  she  makes  an  excellent  job 
of  it.  Nearly  always  there  is  something  queer  and 
notable  going  forward  in  the  scullery,  and  Maggie 
faces  the  facts  of  the  case  like  a  sensible  realist. 

But  Mrs.  Chapman's  art  is  naturally  upon  a 
higher  plane.  There  is  a  rare  charm  in  the  look  of 
the  kitchen,  her  studio — bright  and  lofty,  with  two 
large  windows  on  one  side  of  it,  another  at  the  end. 
The  flags  of  the  floor  are  crisp  to  the  tread,  the 
dressers  shine  with  their  pots  and  pans,  the  huge 
table  is  scrubbed  to  the  whiteness  of  paper.  The 
racks  and  gratings  and  oven-doors  of  the  range, 
with  the  little  furnace  roaring  in  the  midst  of  them, 
are  infinitely  suggestive;  before  every  meal  the 
artist  is  engaged  in  an  enchanting  game  with  this 
magnificent  toy.  Imagine  the  delight — but  her 
rare  skill  does  not  reveal  itself  in  broad  touches, 
emphatic  manipulations,  such  as  are  to  be  observed 
in  the  scullery ;  these  higher  refinements  are  proved 
but  in  the  eating.  There  indeed  they  were  recog- 
nized, they  were  acclaimed;  upon  many  of  them 
I  should  like  to  dwell  minutely.  All  the  mellow 
ripeness  of  a  bountiful  harvest,  all  the  light  wild 
savours  of  spring,  were  caught  and  mingled  in  the 
artistry  of  this  remarkable  woman — I  feel  sure  of  it. 
There  was  a  heart  of  noble  staunchness  in  her 
masterpieces,  and  a  soul  of  unnameable  fragrance. 
But  the  genius  of  a  cook  is  fugitive  as  that  of  an 
actor,  a  dancer.  What  do  we  know  of  the  grace  of 
Taglioni  ?  We  have  only  another's  word  for  it,  and 
for  the  perfection  of  Mrs.  Chapman's  accomplish- 
ment I  can  only  offer  mine. 

76 


INDOORS 

Now  and  then  she  would  invite  us  to  tea,  a  grand 
tea  in  The  Room.  In  The  Room,  her  private  and 
anonymous  parlour,  a  wondrous  table  would  be 
spread;  I  remember  the  dazed  impression,  as  one 
entered,  of  dishes  and  dishes  high-piled,  profusion 
and  variety  in  which  the  mind  was  lost.  The  Room, 
like  the  scullery,  had  the  odd  property  of  wriggling 
itself  into  an  unexplained  position,  revealed  when 
you  looked  from  the  window.  It  was  approached 
from  the  kitchen-passage,  which  lay  far  off  and 
away  from  the  garden-door  and  the  lawn ;  yet  there 
was  the  lawn,  full  in  front  of  the  window,  and  it 
never  seemed  clear  how  it  had  arrived  in  that 
quarter.  Earlham  always  remained  an  experience, 
the  house  was  a  condition  of  things  through  which 
one  moved,  inhaUng  enchantment ;  it  did  not  exist, 
it  hardly  does  so  now,  as  an  object  detached, 
imagined,  ensphered  in  thought.  I  chance  upon 
The  Room  in  the  course  of  my  wanderings,  and  the 
small  surprise  of  seeing  the  familiar  flower-beds  just 
there,  under  the  window,  is  punctually  renewed. 

But  enough,  the  table  is  dazzling  in  its  abundance, 
for  our  good  friend's  notion  of  a  fit  repast  is  indeed 
superb.  Shall  I  describe  it  in  detail? — is  it  not  a 
pity  that  the  memory  should  perish,  when  it  might 
be  chronicled  to  the  last  minuteness  ?  At  any  rate 
I  must  say  that  the  freshness  and  firmness,  the 
cool  succulence  and  the  sherry-coloured  gleam  of 
these — these  here,  stacked  upon  their  dish,  arresting 
the  vagrant  eye — will  represent  the  cynosure  of  the 
feast;  and  to  these  at  least  you  must  do  justice, 
where  it  is  impossible  to  do  justice  impartially  over 
all  the  table.    In  an  hour's  time — be  certain  that 

77 


EARLHAM 

we  are  not  to  be  hurried — we  shall  look  round  us 
with  regret,  I  dare  say,  at  chances  wasted  and  lost ; 
for  even  the  greediest  have  never  kept  pace  with 
Mrs.  Chapman's  inspiration.  But  of  these  in  their 
builded  pile,  a  hollow  and  four-square  tower  of 
them,  I  well  engage  that  no  trace  will  be  left  when 
at  last  the  company  disperses. 

i8 
Suddenly,  as  it  seems,  I  find  myself  alone,  quite 
alone  in  the  house,  in  the  deep  of  the  soundless 
afternoon.  An  extraordinary  stillness  fills  the  hall, 
where  I  pause  almost  in  awe;  the  garden-door 
stands  open,  and  nothing  is  heard  but  the  light  flap 
of  the  awning  which  hangs  in  the  doorway.  Why  or 
where  all  the  family  has  scattered  I  could  not  say, 
or  how  it  is  that  I  am  loitering  solitary  at  this  hour, 
half-shy  of  the  silence;  but  I  guess  that  I  have 
strayed  in  from  the  garden — and  yes,  I  see  how 
it  would  happen.  Ranging  along  the  gravel  walk 
outside,  one  would  drift  towards  the  door  and  the 
porch,  because  the  cream-coloured  plaster  and  paint 
of  the  porch  has  an  attraction.  By  this  time  of 
day  the  surface  is  hot,  really  scorching  hot  in  the 
sun,  and  it  is  pleasant  to  lay  a  hand  upon  the 
plaster  and  to  feel  how  it  burns ;  it  positively  burns 
your  palm.  And  then  I  might  hitch  aside  the 
striped  awning  and  meet  the  sudden  stillness  and 
dimness  of  the  house  within,  the  cool  quietude 
secretly  stored  away  there  while  the  full-throated 
blaze  of  August  beats  on  it  from  without.  It  would 
be  enough  to  give  me  pause ;  the  house,  so  entered, 
is  like  a  great  cave,  on  the  narrow  mouth  of  which 

78 


INDOORS 

one  has  stumbled  by  chance,  unexpectedly.  I 
should  certainly  be  drawn  in ;  and  there  I  am  in  the 
middle  of  the  bare  floor,  wondering  at  the  solitude. 
I  hear  how  my  footsteps  sounded  as  I  crossed  to 
the  flight  of  the  stairs.  Just  there  stood  the  great 
dinner-gong,  and  with  the  touch  of  a  knuckle  I 
might  wake  a  low  reverberation — a  light  touch, 
only  enough  to  start  the  hollow  murmur  very  gently. 
It  said  plainly  that  I  had  the  house  to  myself;  a 
small  echo  like  this,  of  a  powerful  voice  barely 
breathing  into  sound,  seems  to  steal  away  into  all 
the  deserted  rooms  and  to  reveal  their  emptiness. 
I  could  be  entirely  conscious  of  the  spell  of  the  house 
at  such  a  moment ;  it  was  romance — romance  that 
I  just  can,  just  cannot,  define  in  words.  I  can 
detect  the  mingling  of  many  influences ;  but  each  of 
them  shifts  out  of  the  line  of  sight  as  I  turn  to  fix  it. 
They  could  flutter  and  charm  the  mind  of  a  child — 
no  doubt  of  that;  a  surge  of  excitement  would 
carry  the  child  up  the  shallow  stairs,  treading  on  air. 
It  seemed  like  an  immense  expansion  of  one's  power 
an  annihilation  of  Umits,  with  a  warm  gush  of  new 
freedom  that  might  easily  set  the  heart  thumping 
unawares.  That  house,  those  rooms,  Earlham  the 
well-beloved,  a  place  all  steeped  in  its  beautiful 
golden  past — such  images  advance  hke  an  invasion 
into  a  mind  too  small  to  hold  them — too  small, 
but  that  it  suddenly  opens  wide,  arches  out,  ready, 
one  would  say,  to  contain  a  world.  It  is  a  great 
experience,  flashing  into  a  life  that  is  always  so  busy 
with  small  immediate  tangible  things ;  at  Earlham, 
especially,  there  was  seldom  a  moment  unclaimed 
by  the  sight  and  sound,  the  smell  and  touch  and 

79 


EARLH AM 

taste  of  the  eventful  surface.  Year  by  year  as  we 
returned  thither  for  the  perfect  weeks  of  summer, 
there  was  an  ever-increasing  hoard  of  familiar  detail 
to  be  re-discovered  and  examined  and  brooded 
upon;  many  long  days  could  be  spent,  I  almost 
think,  in  simply  travelling  over  the  texture  of  the 
place,  inch  by  inch,  to  make  sure  that  it  was  all  as 
one  very  well  knew  it  to  be.  But  then  came  a 
moment,  like  this  in  which  I  find  myself  alone, 
when  the  imagination  seemed  to  shoot  up  all- 
powerful,  masterfully  enlarging  the  capacity  of  one's 
thought  and  reaching  out  to  invisible  wonders. 

Forgetting  my  occupation  in  the  garden,  what- 
ever it  was,  I  reach  the  top  of  the  first  short  flight 
of  stairs,  where  I  face  the  open  doorway  of  the  ante- 
room. Not  a  sound,  not  a  soul ;  and  in  the  northern 
greyness  of  the  ante-room  the  solitude  is  intensely 
solemn.  I  have  mentioned  the  dais  and  the  bow- 
window,  the  great  china  jar  and  the  green  window- 
seat  ;  but  let  me  try  to  describe  more  closely  what 
I  see.  I  stand  on  the  threshold,  and  I  look  across 
the  width  of  the  room ;  its  length  lies  to  my  right, 
with  the  bow- window  at  the  end  of  it,  and  the 
greenery  of  the  lime-avenue  outside.  Exactly 
opposite  to  me  there  is  another  window,  facing 
west;  so  that  at  this  end  of  the  room  a  mellower 
light  is  shed  upon  the  green  carpet — not  enough, 
however,  to  scatter  widely,  or  to  tinge  the  pallor 
of  the  northern  day  which  mainly  occupies  the 
space.  But  is  that  clear  ?  There  is  some  kind  of  a 
picture  in  your  mind,  as  I  place  the  words ;  and  it 
is  utterly  unlike  the  picture  that  /  possess,  and  the 
finest  art  in  the  world  could  not  set  yours  right  in 

80 


INDOORS 

every  detail.  I  wish  I  could  see  at  least  your 
mistakes,  to  correct  them;  it  is  disheartening,  no 
less,  to  stand  here  on  the  threshold  of  the  ante-room 
with  everything  so  plainly  before  me,  and  to  know 
that  the  accuracy  of  my  vision  is  of  no  avail.  I 
might  just  as  well  have  forgotten,  just  as  well  not 
know  the  look  and  colour  and  feel  of  every  object 
in  the  room  almost,  for  all  the  power  my  knowledge 
gives  me  to  make  a  complete  and  faithful  report. 
Something  is  sure  to  go  wrong  in  the  impression 
I  give;  and  it  will  be  sketchy,  cloudy,  vague, 
compared  with  the  impression  I  retain. 

In  teUing  an  imaginary  story  a  writer  is  content 
to  leave  the  reader  in  his  error.  The  reader  imagines 
the  house,  the  room,  the  garden,  as  he  pleases; 
what  matter  if  it  is  aU  distorted,  re-arranged,  so  long 
as  certain  few  details  are  correctly  placed?  An 
old-fashioned  room,  a  window-seat,  some  high- 
backed  chairs,  some  portraits  on  the  panelled  walls 
— enough,  there  is  a  setting  for  the  blush-tinted 
maiden  who  gazes  from  the  window,  a  letter  just 
falling  from  her  hand.  So  the  story  might  begin, 
and  the  author  would  contentedly  leave  you  to  fill 
in  the  picture  of  the  room  as  you  choose — with  a 
thousand  points  of  unHkeness  to  the  room  as  he 
thought  of  it.  But  in  a  true  story,  like  mine,  every- 
thing seems  to  be  spoilt  if  you  deviate  from  my 
memory  at  any  point — if  you  place,  for  example, 
the  wrong  kind  of  Chinese  cups  and  beakers  on  the 
cabinet,  if  you  omit  the  little  cluster  of  humming- 
birds under  their  glass  dome  on  the  table,  if  you  are 
confused  on  the  subject  of  the  green  roses  in  the 
carpet ;  and  even  now  you  do  not  know  where  the 

8i  G 


EARLHAM 

cabinet  stood,  or  how  the  humming-birds  were 
flanked  by  the  other  objects  on  that  table.  Not  one 
of  them  strikes  me  as  unessential  to  the  effect  that 
I  should  wish  to  evoke. 

It  cannot  be  helped,  I  must  leave  it  imperfect 
and  uncertain.  Myself,  as  I  write  the  words,  I  pass 
up  the  length  of  the  room  and  silently  note  what  I 
see,  exalted  by  my  sense  of  power  and  illumination. 
Alone  with  the  house,  alone  with  its  watchful  spirit, 
one  is  stirred  with  vast,  delicious  apprehension; 
the  stretch  of  a  pair  of  arms  seems  to  grow  till  one 
might  touch  the  ceiUng,  the  trees,  the  sky  with  a 
lifted  hand.  Indeed  I  feel  like  a  ghost — I  mean  that 
the  child  so  felt.  I  speak  of  the  spirit  of  the  house, 
not  knowing  what  words  to  use;  but  to  the  child 
who  wanders  up  the  room,  who  mounts  the  step  of 
the  dais  (slipping  on  the  treacherous  rug  that  is 
spread  there),  who  stops  to  peer  into  the  great  jar 
and  smell  the  rose-leaves,  who  lingers  handling  and 
caressing  the  pointed  knob  of  the  lid — to  the  child 
it  is  no  matter  for  such  a  simple  phrase.  It  is  far 
profounder,  more  complicated.  It  is  I,  it  is  the 
child  who  is  in  the  spirit,  miraculously  pervading 
the  good  old  earthly  presence  of  the  place,  the 
house ;  I  am  well  away  and  apart  from  that  figure 
by  the  china  jar.  The  figure  turns  and  moves; 
mechanically  it  plunges  its  fingers  into  the  fragrant 
dust  of  roses  and  spices ;  but  I  must  have  strayed 
very  far  from  it,  have  lost  sight  of  it  entirely,  for  I 
have  the  oddest  difficulty  in  getting  back  again 
when  I  must. 

Some  one  comes  into  the  room,  the  solitude  is 
broken ;  and  my  wandering  fancy  is  recalled  to  the 

82 


INDOORS 

body  it  had  forgotten.  But  there  is  a  strange 
interval  in  which  the  creature,  the  empty  body, 
actually  speaks  and  answers  of  its  own  accord, 
looking  and  sounding  as  though  I  were  there  to 
direct  it.  I  see  it  and  hear  it,  all  helplessly;  it  is 
surprising  that  the  new-comer  notices  nothing,  takes 
the  mechanical  image  for  myself.  It  is  uncomfort- 
able, it  is  awkward;  and  the  disconcerted  spirit 
makes  an  effort,  quite  painful,  to  wrench  itself  back 
into  its  rightful  place.  You  know  the  sensation, 
I  don't  doubt;  the  child  I  speak  of  was  often 
plagued  by  it,  and  the  memory  chances  to  be  linked 
with  the  thought  of  that  slippery  step  of  the  dais 
in  the  ante-room,  the  green-grey  light,  the  surge  of 
the  humming  of  bees  in  the  limes.  It  passes,  it 
passes ;  the  spirit  is  suddenly  restored  to  the  body, 
and  I  pick  up  the  thread  of  the  casual  talk  as  though 
nothing  had  happened.  But  would  it  not  be  in  such 
minutes  as  these,  now  and  then  renewed,  that  the 
child  could  learn  the  meaning  of  a  romantic  passion  ? 
Earlham  was  the  centre  of  many  loves,  much 
tender  and  grateful  loyalty ;  from  far  back  its  sons 
and  daughters  had  given  it  of  their  best.  They 
grew  up  there  and  went  their  ways,  they  came  back 
with  children  of  their  own,  they  were  drawn  always 
nearer  to  the  place  by  their  memories  of  youth  and 
age.  The  bond  was  strengthened  by  j  oy ,  by  sorrow ; 
so  much  they  had  seen  there,  birthdays  and  merry- 
making, high  hopes,  the  tracks  of  time,  the  appari- 
tion of  easeful  death,  that  the  house  became  like  a 
part  of  themselves,  they  might  feel  that  their 
experience  was  embodied  in  its  walls  and  timbers. 
Yes,  but  Earlham  was  as  much  and  as  dear,  it  seems 

83 


EARLHAM 

to  me,  even  to  a  child  who  looked  back  over  a 
hand's-breadth,  a  little  patch  of  summertime  that  it 
amazes  me  now  to  measure  from  a  distance.  How 
many  times,  returning  to  Earlham,  had  I  rushed  to 
the  window-seat  of  faded  velvet,  clambered  to  the 
ledge  of  the  window,  hung  there  to  survey  the 
weeping  ash  in  the  grassy  enclosure  beneath? — 
punctually  one  greets  the  dome  of  the  weeping  ash 
again,  that  so  habitable  tree,  as  shapely  as  a  bell- 
tent.  Already  the  vista  of  an  age  was  behind  me, 
I  should  have  said ;  and  if  I  could  remember  three 
years  or  four — four  wonderful  August  evenings  on 
which  we  returned  to  Earlham  again  as  of  old — that 
would  then  be  the  utmost,  I  suppose,  the  full  stretch 
of  my  conscious  knowledge  of  the  place.  Back  there 
as  I  now  am,  in  that  particular  hour  of  thrilled 
solitude,  I  taste  a  passion  that  I  cannot  recognize 
as  the  bright  holiday  romance  of  a  child;  it  has 
solemn  depths,  as  though  it  could  already  be 
charged  with  a  richly  mingled  experience. 

Indeed  there  is  no  count  of  time  in  the  life  of  an 
imagination ;  from  the  moment  it  is  touched  you  are 
freed  from  the  necessity  of  earning  your  experience 
grain  by  grain,  in  the  common  fashion.  For  days 
and  days  you  may  work  patiently  forward,  appro- 
priating the  spoil  of  the  moment,  adding  it  to  your 
store ;  if  you  are  exceedingly  careful  and  attentive 
your  pile  may  be  always  increasing,  a  day's  work 
may  respectably  heighten  it.  But  it  only  grows 
with  the  measure  of  time,  a  few  shining  specks  to 
the  hour  perhaps ;  there  is  no  hastening  or  rushing 
the  process  so  long  as  it  is  left  in  your  hands.  And 
then  in  a  flash  it  is  out  of  your  hands,  and  every- 

84 


INDOORS 

thing  happens  in  new  ways.  Sight  becomes  more 
than  seeing,  becomes  a  faculty  that  enfolds  and 
embraces,  in  one  stroke  possessing  itself  of  the 
scene  that  till  now  you  have  plodded  over  with  thin 
senses  unaided.  To  see,  to  touch,  by  ordinary  laws, 
is  to  retain  but  a  point  at  a  time — just  the  point 
where  you  glanced  or  where  your  finger  fell ;  weeks 
of  toil  it  might  easily  take  to  acquire  and  assimilate 
a  scene  in  that  manner.  But  the  imagination, 
unaccountably  stirred,  sweeps  forward  with  a 
sudden  billowy  swing,  gathers  an  armful  in  the  tick 
of  a  moment — and  there,  before  you  can  wink  an 
eye,  is  your  small  laborious  treasure  increased  a 
hundredfold.  If  the  work  of  days,  of  weeks,  is 
achieved  while  a  dew-drop  runs  over  a  leaf  (like 
Meredith's  "  bloom  of  dawn  "),  do  not  doubt  that 
there  is  room  for  a  life-time  in  the  memory  of  a 
child — a  child  for  whom  the  flash  of  illumination 
has  fallen  now  and  then  in  the  hush  of  an  August 
afternoon. 

"  Of  thee  to  say  Behold,  has  said  Adieu  "  :  it  is 
true  of  the  rose-glimmer  of  dawn,  it  is  truer  still, 
I  am  sorry  to  find,  of  these  beautiful  visitations. 
Somebody  came  into  the  room,  common  life  shut 
down  upon  the  child  again — so  it  happened;  but 
so  it  always  happens,  I  have  never  discovered  the 
secret  of  prolonging  the  few  rare  moments.  Enough 
that  in  passing  they  bestow  their  imperishable  gift ; 
the  time,  the  place,  are  marked  for  ever  afterwards, 
plainly  to  be  seen  over  lengthening  years.  I  am  sure 
it  is  impossible  to  forget  them — even  when  at  last 
there  are  some  that  shine  at  a  very  far  distance, 
like  this  of  the  great  cool  ante-room  at  Earlham. 

85 


EARLHAM 

The  remembrance  hangs  there,  beaconing  clearly,  a 
long  way  off  by  this  time ;  it  is  safe  from  all  chances, 
it  will  only  quaver  and  sink  when  the  child  is 
extinguished  too. 

I  cannot  tear  myself  away ;  I  loiter  interminably 
across  the  green  roses  of  that  carpet,  always  trying 
to  utter  the  sweet  old  memories  that  go  rippling 
and  beating  in  my  brain.  It  is  hard  enough  to 
describe  what  is  before  my  eyes — the  queer  broad 
sofa  or  couch,  for  instance,  covered  with  floriferous 
wool-work,  so  broad  that  you  roll  and  roll  I  know 
not  how  many  times,  over  and  over,  to  get  from 
one  side  to  the  other;  but  how  much  harder  to 
catch  these  wafts  and  puffs  of  sensation  that  beset 
me  while  I  veer  to  and  fro,  gradually  making  my 
way  down  the  length  of  the  room.  There  is  a  dis- 
tinction, you  see,  between  remembering,  recalling 
things  in  detachment,  recounting  the  tale  of  them 
— between  this  and  recovering  how  it  felt,  how  it 
was,  when  the  things  themselves  were  all  about  you, 
tacitly  assumed  and  taken  for  granted.  I  might 
make  a  fair  picture  of  the  great  angular  couch  (can 
I  indeed  omit  it?),  and  I  might  shew  how  our 
bright-haired  cousin,  she  of  the  lovely  stories, 
joined  us  gaily  and  riotously  in  a  game  that 
sprawled  over  the  expanse  of  it ;  but  I  am  tormented 
by  the  sidelong  influences  of  the  scene,  welling  into 
it  from  right  and  left,  which  are  not  to  be  caught  in 
a  description  of  the  scene  itself.  I  forget  them, 
perhaps,  when  I  begin  to  make  my  picture ;  I  think 
only  of  the  absurd  piece  of  furniture,  hard  and 

86 


INDOORS 

comfortless,  suitable  for  nothing  but  to  roll  upon, 
and  I  recall  its  carved  wooden  frame  and  the 
bunched  flowers  of  the  wool-work; — and  there, 
suddenly  the  air  of  the  old  day  comes  surging  round 
me,  and  yes,  I  say  to  myself,  that  is  how  it  was,  how 
it  felt. 

How  can  one  talk  about  Earlham  to  any  purpose, 
unless  to  the  picture  of  things  seen  and  done  it  is 
possible  to  add  this  aura  of  sweet  sensation  ?  Even 
as  I  hang  on  the  sharp  edge  of  the  couch,  where  it  is 
framed  in  the  band  of  wooden  carving,  I  am  aware 
of  the  savours,  echoes,  rhythms  of  Earlham  all 
about  me — I  don't  know  which  is  the  word  for  them. 
Evidently  the  air  must  be  full  of  them;  and  they 
vary,  what  is  more,  from  room  to  room,  for  nobody 
could  mistake  the  mood,  the  tone  of  the  ante-room 
or  confuse  it  with  any  other.  What  is  it,  then? 
How  ridiculous  to  perceive  it  so  acutely,  and  yet 
to  be  quite  unable  to  name  it — a  matter  of  such 
definite  quahties  too,  nothing  uncertain  or  dim. 
All  I  can  say  is  that  as  soon  as  I  enter  this  room 
there  is  something  in  my  hollow  footfall  (it  sounded 
hollow  and  muffled,  just  across  the  threshold),  in 
the  soft  smell  of  the  velvet  curtains,  in  the  pecuhar 
rake  of  the  two  lights,  the  northern  and  the  western, 
in  the  clean  brownness  of  the  high  panels  (stained 
and  grained,  you  remember) — some  influence  in  all 
these  which  affects  and  qualifies  anything  I  may 
say  or  do,  see  or  hear,  between  these  four  walls. 
Cross  over  to  the  other  door,  enter  the  drawing- 
room  beyond,  and  behold  what  a  change  in  the 
spirit  and  the  cHmate.  It  is  another  world,  with 
another  fine  rain  of  deUcate  emanations — I  feel 

87 


EARLH AM 

them  intensely,  as  soon  as  ever  I  turn  the  corner 
of  the  leather  screen  by  the  door.  Here,  for  instance, 
I  pause  for  a  moment  by  the  round  table,  the  table 
with  its  black  and  yellow  cover,  on  which  there 
stood  (shadowed  by  the  bowery  bouquet  of  dahlias 
and  asparagus)  a  sort  of  dish  or  tray  of  clouded 
marble,  supported  on  metal  feet  and  garnished  with 
little  chains  and  dangling  balls — perhaps  it  had 
been  bought  at  the  Great  Exhibition.  Now  mark, 
I  swing  one  of  the  Httle  chains  so  that  its  marble 
ball  strikes  the  dish — clink\  And  if  that  is  not 
enough,  I  turn  to  one  of  the  candlesticks  on  the — 
the  chiffonier,  would  it  be  called  ? — and  set  the  glass 
lustres  gently  clanking ;  and  this  at  any  rate  gives 
me  the  note  of  the  drawing-room  in  a  trice.  Clink, 
clank;  the  soft  voices  ring  out;  and  Ustening  to 
them  now,  with  eyes  shut,  I  know  beyond  doubt 
that  I  am  in  the  drawing-room  at  Earlham. 

So  it  goes,  from  room  to  room;  round  every 
corner  there  is  a  change  of  atmosphere,  instant  and 
complete,  each  with  its  penetrating  appeal.  Never 
for  a  moment  have  I  confused  them;  and  I  test 
my  clear  knowledge  by  brushing  swiftly  back 
through  the  ante-room,  up  the  next  flight  of  stairs, 
along  the  passage,  and  opening  a  door  or  two  at 
random,  left  and  right.  This  is  the  door  that  leads 
to  the  back-stairs,  where  the  boards  are  bare  and 
resonant;  or  this  again  is  the  dark  entry  through 
which  one  fumbles  into  the  Blue  Room,  where  the 
low  window-seats  command  a  view  of  the  front 
door,  and  you  hear  the  crisp  crackle  of  the  gravel 
under  the  carriage-wheels ;  and  here  is  the  nursery 
once  more,  where  each  of  the  five  doors  shuts  on  a 

88 


INDOORS 

different  note,  a  click  or  a  thud,  sharply  dis- 
tinguished; and  in  fine  there  is  no  possibility  of 
mistaking  the  changes  of  pitch  (that  is  the  word, 
I  think,  after  all)  to  which  the  regions  of  the  house 
are  variously  attuned.  No  account  of  Earlham 
could  satisfy  me  which  failed  to  mark  these  deep 
distinctions,  failed  to  make  them  heard  and  felt 
in  every  scene ;  and  it  means  that  I  can  be  satisfied 
by  no  account  whatever,  or  by  none  but  that  which 
memory  is  always  at  hand  to  compose,  speaking  to 
every  sense  at  once.  When  we  have  learned  to 
create  pictures  of  music,  symphonies  of  fragrance, 
honey-draughts  of  colour  and  form,  and  all  in  a 
single  achievement  of  art,  then  we  may  hope  for  an 
artist  with  the  genius  of  memory — not  till  then. 

20 

But  come,  after  long  rambling  and  roaming  I 
must  plant  myself  firmly  on  the  spot  where  I  began. 
I  was  on  one  of  the  red  seats  in  the  hall,  watching 
the  household  file  into  their  places  for  prayers; 
and  then  came  the  hymn,  the  chapter,  the  exposi- 
tion of  the  chapter,  and  the  appealing  cadences  of 
our  grandfather's  voice  while  he  prayed.  As  we 
rose  to  our  feet  after  the  final  moments  of  silence, 
the  stirring  and  shuffling  and  bustling  of  life  went 
forward  again;  the  benches  were  swept  off  into 
their  dim  hiding-place,  an  uncle  or  two  went 
bounding  upstairs,  I  dare  say,  to  revise  a  vamped 
toilet,  the  rest  of  the  company  strayed  to  the  garden- 
door  and  the  twinkling  flower-beds  that  flanked  it 
outside.  I  myself  had  been  out  there  already, 
before  prayers ;  for  I  remember  that  as  I  sat  in  one 

89 


EARLH AM 

of  the  side-arches  of  the  shallow  porch,  dangling 
my  legs,  a  packet  of  letters  had  fallen  with  a  plop 
on  the  gravel  from  an  upper  window.  It  always 
happened  so,  in  the  half-hour  before  prayer-time; 
grandmother's  window  was  just  overhead,  and 
when  she  had  read  her  letters  she  bunched  them 
together  and  dropped  them  on  to  the  gravel  by  the 
porch,  for  grandfather  to  pick  up  and  read  as  he 
returned  from  an  early  stroll.  He  greeted  us,  where 
we  sat  and  drummed  our  heels,  with  a  kindly 
quizzical  gleam.  "  Good-morning,  sir;  good-morn- 
ing, miss ;  how  do  you  do,  this  bow-tiful  morning  " 
— he  had  a  pleasant  way  of  so  sounding  the  first 
sjdlable  of  the  word,  like  beau  in  French.  He  picked 
up  the  packet  of  letters  and  passed  into  the  study, 
and  then  it  was  soon  time  for  his  congregation  to 
assemble. 

The  children  had  breakfasted  earlier,  in  the  bright 
nursery,  but  they  were  quite  ready  to  follow  their 
elders  to  the  dining-room,  on  the  signal  of  the  gong. 
There  were  peaches,  there  were  grapes,  pears,  plums ; 
and  if  our  elders  were  busy  with  their  own  meal  at 
first,  we  could  hover  and  range  around  till  our  turn 
came.  At  the  further  end  of  the  room  there  stood 
a  miniature  billiard-table,  which  kept  us  occupied ; 
the  balls  spun  and  flew  on  the  green  cloth  till  they 
crashed — crashed  on  the  polished  boards  of  the 
floor,  and  warning  voices  called  us  to  order.  Or  we 
might  Unger  expectant  by  our  grandmother — and 
her  manner  of  treating  a  meal  was  always  interest- 
ing. In  front  of  her  was  the  great  pot-bellied  silver 
kettle  on  its  foHated  stand;  it  was  a  kettle  that 
sat  down  comfortably,  with  the  figure  of  an  Indian 

90 


INDOORS 

god.  She  began  to  fill  a  tea-cup — but  stay,  she  saw 
our  grandfather  busy  with  the  dishes  that  were 
ranged  before  him  at  his  end  of  the  table ;  he  was 
serving  the  company  with  his  neat  precision;  and 
"  Will  you  have  some  of  this,  dear?  "  he  called 
to  her,  spoon  in  hand.  "  Not  so  much — half  tha.t  " 
— ^her  protest  flew  back  before  his  spoon  could 
touch  the  dish ;  vivid  in  her  mind  was  the  horror  of 
a  "  great  helping."  "  Such  a  great  slice,"  she 
declared,  as  the  meal  of  a  wren  was  placed  before 
her ;  and  the  tea-cup  was  filled,  but  not  before  she 
had  swiftly  divided  her  scrap  of  bacon  and  deposited 
most  of  it  on  the  plate  of  her  neighbour.  It  was 
all  very  agreeable  to  watch,  so  instinct  with  life; 
I  could  stare  most  contentedly,  and  it  was  splendid 
when  she  roused  one  of  her  sons,  stirring  him  to 
rich  rejoinder,  by  some  infringement  on  his  rights 
and  liberties.  Did  he  appear  to  be  wastefully, 
recklessly  shovelling  the  jam  or  the  butter  on  his 
plate?  Well,  she  couldn't  help  it,  the  word  es- 
caped her;  and  then  you  should  have  seen  the 
grand  humour  of  his  remonstrance.  They  delighted 
to  challenge  her  precious  minute  economies,  to  tell 
how  she  would  travel  from  the  furthest  end  of  the 
house  to  light  her  candle  at  the  kitchen  fire,  sooner 
than  strike  a  valuable  match;  she  denied  it,  but 
she  could  not  quite  positively  deny  it,  and  her 
pretty  smile,  at  once  submitting,  protesting,  appeal- 
ing, beamed  gently  as  she  turned  again  to  her 
tea-making.  What  a  dear  little  drama  of  character 
— just  the  kind  of  scene  that  would  hold  us 
entranced,  while  the  biggest  peach  was  being  peeled 
for  us. 

91 


E ARLH AM 

Our  grandfather  had  finished  his  breakfast,  had 
announced  that  he  should  be  "  going  in  "  that 
morning,  had  disappeared  from  the  room ;  and  our 
grandmother  was  busy  in  the  background,  unob- 
trusively— she  was  clearly  making  up  a  parcel 
(goodness  knows  what  went  into  it)  for  grandfather 
to  leave  at  some  humble  door  in  Norwich,  but  she 
didn't  wish  to  call  ribald  attention  to  it.  The  rest 
of  the  party  lounged  about  the  long  table,  expan- 
sively jesting  and  talking ;  and  it  was  a  moment  of 
the  day  that  concerned  us,  for  plans  might  be 
broached,  there  might  be  talk  of  an  excursion  on 
the  river,  a  picnic.  And  anyhow  it  was  the  moment 
when  the  possibilities  of  the  day  began  to  open  and 
extend  before  us ;  and  when  I  think  of  the  incalcul- 
able spaciousness  of  the  day,  a  prospect  that  dis- 
appeared over  the  horizon  without  a  hint  of  a  night 
or  another  day  beyond  it,  I  cannot  wonder  that  I 
seemed  to  have  just  as  much  life  behind  me  at  that 
hour  as  ever  in  later  years.  Such  immensities  of 
time  in  a  single  day — even  if  there  were  only  a  few 
hundreds  of  days  bestowed  away  in  my  memory, 
they  stretched  the  count  of  my  years  to  a  high 
figure.  Did  you  ever  feel  young,  at  least  till  there 
began  to  be  those  who  thought  you  old  ?  Awkward, 
shapeless,  inexpert  I  might  feel,  sometimes  light  and 
flimsy  as  fluff,  sometimes  ponderous  as  lead,  but 
never  in  those  days  young ;  and  evidently  it  is  not 
surprising.  This,  however,  was  not  the  point  at  the 
moment;  I  was  entirely  engaged  in  considering 
whether  it  would  be  more  perfect  bhss  to  plunge  into 
a  morning  in  the  garden,  without  our  elders,  or  to 
learn  that  some  of  them  were  prepared  to  take  us 

92 


INDOORS 

on  the  river,  rowing  down  to  Cringleford  mill. 
Which  should  I  choose  to-day,  if  choose  I  might  ? 
Indeed  I  must  have  both,  and  I  will  very  shortly 
— but  not  for  a  few  minutes  yet. 

For  look,  I  unexpectedly  chance  upon  another 
small  scene  that  detains  me.  I  had  quite  forgotten 
it,  but  when  we  left  the  dining-room,  the  morning 
plan  having  been  settled,  and  dashed  away  through 
the  hall,  we  found  our  grandmother  sitting  on  the 
red  sofa  by  the  staircase,  talking  to  a  young  clerical 
gentleman,  a  curate,  who  was  seated  beside  her. 
How  should  I  know  the  subject  of  their  talk?  I 
couldn't  say,  but  I  was  perfectly  aware  that  the 
young  curate  was  being  "  spoken  to  "  about  some- 
thing— I  don't  know  what,  perhaps  about  his 
preaching,  perhaps  about  his  manner  of  drawling 
and  droning  through  the  service;  anyhow  our 
grandmother  had  been  impelled,  in  her  quick  warm 
way,  to  speak  a  gentle  word  of  warning  and  advice. 
Of  course  it  was  for  grandfather  to  do  this,  really, 
if  it  had  to  be  done,  but  he  was  so  patient,  so  mild ; 
he  would  have  put  up  with  the  long-winded  drawl, 
would  never  have  noticed  it  perhaps;  whereas  to 
grandmother  it  was  a  vivid  irritation  from  the  first, 
and  she  was  bound  to  take  some  step.  I  wish  I 
might  have  heard  what  she  actually  said  to  the 
rather  unkempt  young  man,  when  she  drew  him 
apart  to  speak  her  mind.  Nobody  could  guess 
how  she  began — that  was  certain;  probably  there 
was  a  bewildered  moment  for  the  young  man,  a 
moment  when  there  was  a  doubt,  a  wan  light,  a 
scare  in  his  eye ;  how  the  first  word  of  admonition 
would  spring  from  her  was  never  to  be  foretold,  as 

93 


EARLHAM 

we  well  knew.  A  little  later,  as  I  see  them  talking 
together  upon  the  broad  sofa,  things  are  very 
different,  the  poor  man's  passing  air  of  discomfiture 
has  vanished  entirely.  By  this  time  they  are  deep 
in  converse,  and  the  curate  has  revived  and  ex- 
panded; I  catch  the  tones  of  our  grandmother's 
voice,  warm  and  fervent,  with  a  little  break  in  it 
that  is  eloquent  of  christian  sympathy  and  feeling. 
They  are  far  beyond  the  small  matter  of  reproof, 
whatever  it  was,  and  the  young  man  responds  to 
her  lead  with  eagerness ;  when  she  was  moved  (and 
so  easily  she  was  moved)  to  the  expression  of  her 
heart  of  piety,  there  was  a  soaring  lift  in  her  voice 
that  inspired  a  listener,  that  caught  him  up  to  the 
mood  of  her  ardent  self-forgetful  sincerity.  So  by 
this  time  their  converse  has  winged  away  from 
petty  things,  and  the  young  man's  confidence  is 
renewed,  and  he  follows  her  with  admiring  enthusi- 
asm. His  look  of  veneration,  her  rapt  uplifted  eyes, 
give  me  an  abiding  impression  in  the  five  seconds 
that  it  takes  to  cross  the  hall  and  gain  the  staircase. 
We  were  "  getting  ready  to  go  out,"  and  surely 
it  is  odd  that  the  process  should  take  so  long.  You 
would  think  that  to  seize  a  hat  (if  so  much  as  a  hat) 
and  fly  to  the  garden-door  could  be  done  in  a  stroke ; 
what  more  was  there  to  do  ?  But  somehow  there 
were  delays  and  impediments.  Between  the  foot 
of  the  stairs  and  the  first  landing,  for  instance,  one 
might  drop  into  a  chasm  of  f orgetfulness ;  one's 
purpose  would  suddenly  vanish,  melting  away  at 
the  sight  of  those  splendid  stuffed  herons,  for  the 
thousandth  time,  where  they  stood  throwing  out 
their  great  beaks  so  nobly  over  their  nest.    There 

94 


INDOORS 

were  four  or  five  young  ones  in  the  nest,  and  there 
was  a  sea-green  egg  unhatched — not  very  true  to 
nature  perhaps,  on  the  whole,  for  the  nest  lay  upon 
the  bare  ground,  and  there  was  no  attempt  at 
scenery  save  for  the  sky  and  white  clouds  that  were 
painted  on  the  back  of  the  case.  They  had  been 
stuffed,  those  herons,  in  an  uncritical  age;  but  I 
could  easily  supply  the  rocking  tree-top,  the  whist- 
ling wind.  I  knew  where  they  came  from,  nest  and 
all — from  no  further  off  than  the  heronry  in  the 
park  at  Earlham ;  we  were  immensely  proud  of  the 
heronry,  which  of  course  I  shall  visit  before  long. 
I  could  not  be  sorry  that  one  of  the  nests  had  once 
been  sacrificed,  brought  to  ground,  brought  down 
to  my  very  feet ;  not  otherwise  is  it  given  to  one  to 
look  down  upon  a  sea-green  heron's  egg  in  its  great 
bowl  of  twigs;  moreover  I  think  there  had  been 
some  good  reason  for  the  extinction  of  this  young 
family — an  accident  to  their  parents,  to  their  tree- 
top,  I  forget  what  it  was.  And  then  the  next  case 
above  them,  the  strutting  egregious  ruffs,  and  the 
owls  in  their  hollow  trunk — and  I  have  tumbled 
off  into  space  and  am  lost,  contemplating  the  owls, 
when  a  voice,  calling,  reminds  me  of  my  purpose 
and  projects  me  forward  on  my  way  to  the  nursery. 
It  does  take  a  long  time  to  get  ready.  Half  way 
down  the  passage  there  is  a  step,  edged  with  shining 
brass;  one  takes  a  run  at  it,  one  jumps,  crashing 
upon  the  lower  level ;  the  impetus  carries  one  past 
the  nursery  door,  to  the  window  at  the  end  of  the 
passage.  Here  there  stood  a  species  of  fire-ex- 
tinguisher, a  thing  of  knobs  and  tubes  and  pump- 
handles,  which  luckily  served  out  its  time  without 

95 


E ARLHAM 

ever  being  called  into  play ;  it  stood  idly  upon  the 
window-seat,  well  placed  for  observation.  But  no 
loitering  now ;  back  to  the  nursery — and  I  believe 
I  have  not  happened  to  mention  the  peculiarity  of 
the  nursery  door,  this  one  of  its  five.  It  was  double, 
a  door  within  a  door,  and  between  the  two  there 
was  a  narrow  dark  space,  just  big  enough  to  contain 
me  when  both  were  shut.  Stand  in  the  space  and 
shut  both  the  doors,  and  you  are  immured  in  a 
black  cell;  for  any  one  entering  or  leaving  the 
nursery  unsuspectingly  it  is  a  fearful  shock  to 
come  upon  you  there,  crouching  for  a  spring.  It 
might  be  worth  while  to  wait  there  for  a  minute, 
very  quietly,  in  case  the  nursery-maid  should  come 
blundering  in  with  a  tray  of  crockery ;  she  gives  a 
yelp  and  all  but  drops  the  tray,  as  you  spring  up 
in  her  path.    But  forward,  forward. 

"  Must  I  change  my  shoes  ?  why  need  I  ?  why  ?  " 
It  appears  that  I  am  not  rightly  shod  for  messing 
about  in  the  garden.  Isn't  it  unbelievable  how  the 
superstition  of  changing,  of  substituting  something 
else  for  what  you  have  on  at  the  moment,  clings  to 
the  people  about  you?  They  cannot  leave  well 
alone ;  and  now  it  means  having  to  thump  my  way 
up  the  steep  wooden  stairs  to  the  Eleven-sided 
Room,  after  these  shoes.  But  in  the  happy  light  of 
morning  the  Eleven-sided  Room,  as  I  have  said,  is 
a  place  of  devious  charm  and  interest.  The  strange 
recesses  and  cupboards  may  be  safely  explored; 
and  as  for  the  wall-paper  of  nursery  rhymes.  Mistress 
Mary  and  Little  Bo-peep  and  the  rest  of  them  in 
endless  repetition,  really  I  think  I  could  follow  them 
all  round  the  eleven  walls,  reading  each  of  the 

96 


INDOORS 

legends  a  hundred  times  over.  "  With  cockle-shells 
and  silver  bells  " — start  from  the  corner  where  the 
big  card  hangs  (a  card  headed  "  Morning  Hymn,  by 
John  Keble  " — which  was  faintly  remarkable  to  me, 
for  Keble  was  a  neighbouring  farmer,  and  it  was 
difficult  to  think  of  him  as  the  author  of  "  New 
every  morning  ") — start  from  this  corner,  I  say, 
and  count  how  many  times  you  can  find  the  rhyme 
of  Mistress  Mary  repeated  in  the  pattern  of  the 
paper.  You  wiU  lose  count  before  long,  I  assure 
you;  but  no  matter,  here  is  the  door  of  the  odd 
alcove  above  the  wooden  stairs,  a  door  with  a 
square  pane  of  glass  in  it,  through  which  you  may 
boldly  peer  at  this  time  of  day.  But  really,  these 
intolerable  shoes — drearily  one  faces  the  question 
at  last. 

I  should  not  like  to  say  that  I  got  ready  without 
further  hitch.  You  never  know  where  you  may  not 
.be  tripped  into  that  chasm  of  oblivious  rumination, 
contemplation,  speculation;  it  may  yawn  for  you 
at  any  point,  at  any  time,  along  the  passage  and 
down  the  stairs.  But  have  I  really  dawdled  for 
long,  after  all  ?  I  seem  to  be  ready  in  a  flash,  to  be 
shooting  across  the  hall  to  the  garden-door.  It 
stands  open  as  usual,  and  the  awning  lazily  flaps 
and  bellies  in  the  morning  breeze. 


97  H 


II:    IN  THE  GARDEN 

I 
IT  was  superb,  the  great  lawn  at  Earlham — it 
really  was.  I  have  described  how  it  was  lifted  up, 
almost  to  the  level,  I  should  think,  of  the  first-floor 
windows,  by  a  steep  bank  of  shaven  grass;  but 
there  was  a  considerable  expanse  on  the  lower  level 
too,  before  you  reached  the  bank.  On  this  lower 
lawn,  to  right  and  left,  there  was  a  fantastic  medley 
of  flower-beds,  cut  in  queer  shapes,  coils  and 
lozenges  and  loops;  and  the  gardener's  fancy  ran 
strangely  riot,  year  by  year,  in  selecting  and  dis- 
posing the  flowers  that  filled  them.  Geraniums 
roasting-red,  French  marigolds  orange  and  mahog- 
any-coloured, the  tomato-note  of  waxen  begonias, 
exotic  herbage  all  speckled  and  pied  and  ring- 
straked,  dahlias,  calceolarias — they  were  mar- 
shalled and  massed  together,  they  fought  it  out 
as  they  would.  But  indeed  they  were  mastered  by 
the  sunshine,  by  the  blaze  of  light  in  which  they 
flashed  and  twinkled ;  and  they  fell  back,  right  and 
left,  leaving  a  wide  space  of  clear  clean  grass 
unbroken.  And  then  there  rose  before  you  the 
green  bank,  so  steep  that  I  wonder  how  the  mowing- 
machine  contrived  to  sidle  along  it  and  keep  it  thus 
smoothly  shaven. 

To  me,  as  I  gained  the  crest  of  the  bank,  it  seemed 
as  though  the  huge  flat  of  the  lawn  stretched  away 
and  ahead  for  a  mile;  so  serene,  so  steady  and 

99 


EARLHAM 

peaceful  it  was,  with  nothing  to  break  its  even 
greenness  till  the  eye,  sweeping  far,  reached  the 
shrubberies  and  trees  that  bordered  it  about.  The 
broad  silence  made  nothing  of  such  trivialities  as  a 
lav/n-tennis  net,  a  few  croquet  hoops;  they  were 
lost  in  the  quiet  plain.  Beyond  it  the  horizon  was 
bounded  by  clumped  oaks,  by  dim  woods  more 
distant;  out  there  was  the  park,  and  you  could 
catch  sight  of  the  cows  swinging  their  tails  in  the 
deep  pasture.  On  either  hand  was  a  dense  thicket, 
with  an  edging  of  bright  flowers — a  straight  edge, 
on  this  side  and  that,  so  that  the  lawn  was  a  great 
square.  From  the  further  side  of  it  the  view  of  the 
house  was  beautifully  mellow  and  kindly,  with  its 
long  rows  of  old  windows  and  its  high  chimney- 
stacks.  But  that  comes  later ;  at  this  hour  of  the 
morning  I  should  not  set  out  on  the  journey  across 
the  lawn;  I  should  turn  aside  to  the  thickets  and 
shrubberies,  to  the  shadowy  corners  and  recesses 
of  which  there  were  so  many  to  choose  from. 

Turn,  therefore,  at  the  top  of  the  bank,  turn  to 
the  left  and  foUow  the  edge  of  the  slope  till  it  brings 
you  to  this  angle  of  the  lawn;  it  is  an  excellent 
spot  for  the  beginning  of  a  morning's  exploration. 
Many  possibihties  here  converged;  and  here,  to 
begin  with,  stood  a  wonderful  white  seat,  semi- 
circular, triply  divided,  high  in  the  middle  and 
quite  low  at  the  sides — an  ancient,  a  historic  seat, 
on  which  I  might  well  subside  for  a  minute  or  so, 
while  I  try  to  explain  the  complication  of  interest 
that  gathered  in  this  corner.  It  is  not  easy  at  aU ; 
so  much  seems  to  happen  at  once,  what  with  the 
geranium-blaze  that  here  comes  shelving  up  from 

100 


IN   THE   GARDEN 

the  lower  level,  and  the  red  wall,  with  its  cascade 
of  wistaria  and  clematis,  that  branches  away  from 
a  corner  of  the  house  and  curves  hke  an  arm  in  this 
direction,  and  the  cool  shrubbery  rustling  behind 
me,  and  the  glimpse,  if  I  look  round,  of  a  sun-bright 
enclosure,  formaUy  laid  out,  the  approach  to  which 
is  just  here,  close  at  hand.  It  is  difficult  indeed  to 
make  my  way  methodically;  I  should  remain  on 
the  white  seat  till  nightfall,  shifting  from  one  to 
another  of  its  three  divisions  and  back  again,  if 
I  had  to  describe  how  all  these  diversities  fitted 
together,  conjoining  at  this  point. 

But  there  is  no  hurry,  after  aU;  and  as  I  sit 
there,  under  the  tasselled  branch  of  a  larch  that 
leans  out  from  the  edge  of  the  shrubbery,  I  take  in 
afresh  the  delightful  sense  of  easy  abundance,  the 
loose  comfort,  the  soft-bosomed  maturity  of  the 
garden.  Those  lobelia-stripes,  those  marigold- 
patches  might  look  harsh  and  hard,  you  would 
think;  one  knows  how  smartly  odious  they  can 
appear  in  a  well-kept  garden,  so  caUed,  where  the 
flowers  seem  to  have  been — what  shall  I  say  ? — to 
have  been  stuffed  and  mounted,  lest  they  should 
take  their  ease  as  living  creatures.  Not  a  flower 
could  look  constrained,  unnaturally  smartened,  in 
the  garden  at  Earlham ;  even  if  they  sat  up  in  rows 
and  stripes,  they  did  so  with  enjoyment  uncon- 
cerned. They  glowed,  they  revelled;  and  more- 
over it  was  not,  in  any  vulgar  sense,  a  well-kept 
garden.  It  was  profusely  inconsistent;  if  one 
flower-bed  was  stuck  all  over  with  geraniums  hke  a 
pin-cushion  and  rimmed  with  horrible  little  mon- 
sters of  fretted,  empurpled  foHage,  the  next  might 

lOI 


E  A  R  L  H  A  M 

be  a  bower,  a  boscage,  a  ramp  of  sweet  peas,  a 
bushy  luxuriance  of  phlox  and  rosemary.  And 
especially  the  border  against  the  slow  curve  of  the 
wall  which  I  mentioned  just  now — this  was  a  mazy 
confusion  of  everything  that  gleams  and  glows  and 
exhales  a  spicery  of  humming  fragrance.  Peacock 
butterflies,  brilliant  red  admirals,  fluttered  over  the 
blue  mist  of  sea-lavender;  a  tree  of  verbena,  the 
lemon-scented  herb  of  which  you  pull  a  leaf  when- 
ever you  pass,  branched  out  close  to  the  immense 
old  trunk  of  the  wistaria;  salvia  blue  and  red, 
bitter-sweet  phloxes  white  and  crimson-eyed,  the 
russet  and  purple  trumpets  of  the  lovely  creature 
afflicted  with  the  name  of  salpiglossis,  they  all 
rejoiced  together,  rambling  and  crowding  in  liberal 
exuberance.  The  gardener  might  wreak  his  worst 
will,  scheming  for  a  smart  patchwork ;  but  the  free 
soul  of  the  garden  escaped  him  and  bloomed 
tumultuously.  Or  rather,  perhaps,  there  were 
two  souls  in  the  gardener  himself ;  one,  a  cramped 
and  professional  soul,  disliked  and  mistrusted  a  high- 
spirited  flower ;  but  the  other,  more  indulgent,  had 
the  best  of  it  in  the  garden. 

By  this  time  these  southern  flower-beds  were 
dry  and  warm;  but  in  the  shrubbery  behind  the 
white  seat  the  dew-fresh  airs  of  early  morning  still 
lingered.  A  path  wandered  off  into  the  thicket,  a 
path  with  a  smooth  floor  of  beaten  earth ;  and  if 
I  should  follow  its  twisting,  in  among  the  bushes  of 
laurel  and  snowberry,  I  should  come  upon  a  chill 
little  climate  that  stands  like  a  wall,  resisting  the 
shafts  of  warmth  that  steal  in  from  outside.  It  is 
amusing  to  feel  the  sharp,  distinct  edge  of  the 

102 


IN   THE   GARDEN 

dankness  which  the  sun  has  not  reached  as  yet,  and 
I  might  possibly  spend  some  agreeable  minutes  in 
repeating  the  sensation ;  at  one  moment  you  are  in 
southern  softness,  at  the  next  you  have  pierced  the 
invisible  wall  with  a  pleasing  thrill.  But  this 
shrubbery  was  not  really  one  of  the  great  places  of 
the  garden;  it  was  rather  unresponsive  and  dull. 
I  prefer,  on  leaving  the  white  seat,  to  turn  the 
corner  of  the  curving  wistaria-wall,  which  comes  to 
an  end  just  here,  and  pass  into  the  formal  enclosure 
behind  it.  The  sun  is  quite  high  enough  to  beat 
freely  into  this  sheltered  retreat. 

Face  round,  then,  and  turn  the  corner — but  you 
see  at  once  that  the  wall,  which  has  come  wandering 
up  here  from  the  wing  of  the  house,  does  not  really 
end  at  this  point ;  it  doubles  sharply  back  on  itself, 
enfolding  a  narrow  space  which  entices  my  thought. 
The  sprawling  branches  of  a  quince-tree  appear  over 
the  wall,  from  within ;  but  leave  that  for  the  present, 
remembering  that  the  secret  garden  of  the  quince 
must  be  visited  in  due  course.  It  is  now  the  "  Dutch 
garden  "  that  calls — not  very  Dutch,  in  truth,  but 
that  was  how  we  knew  it.  A  broad  oblong  with  a 
geometrical  parterre,  gravelled  paths,  box  edgings, 
walled  on  three  sides — it  was  Dutch  enough  for  our 
fancy.  The  fourth  side  was  shadowed  by  the  cool 
shrubbery.  And  so  I  guide  you  to  another  white 
seat,  tucked  under  the  honeysuckle  of  one  of  the 
walls  and  overlooking  the  parterre;  and  this  is  a 
very  celebrated  corner,  one  of  the  most  rewarding 
in  all  the  garden.  In  these  morning  hours  the 
children  are  constantly  ranging  in  this  neighbour- 
hood, with  the  seat  for  their  headquarters,  em- 

103 


E ARLH AM 

bowered    in    honeysuckle    and    overhanging    ivy- 
bunches. 

It  was  celebrated ;  there  was  an  old  story  of  one 
of  the  Gurneys,  of  Aunt  Fry  in  her  maiden  youth, 
which  centred  about  this  seat.  Our  grandfather 
liked  to  tell  the  story,  pacing  the  gravelled  path  in 
his  long-skirted  black  coat  and  pointing  out  the 
seat  with  his  umbrella ;  he  told  the  legend  in  a  sly 
voice,  with  a  chuckle,  dramatically  pausing.  It  is 
not  much  of  a  story,  and  I  never  really  believed  it ; 
but  it  was  supposed  that  Aunt  Fry,  then  EUzabeth 
Gurney,  had  been  wavering,  delaying,  demurring 
under  the  discreet  attentions  of  her  suitor — he  could 
get  no  decided  answer  from  her  at  all.  So  the 
matter  stood  when  he  determined  at  length  to  offer 
her  a  present,  a  valuable  gift  of  a  fine  gold  watch 
and  chain;  and  of  course  if  she  accepted  it  she 
committed  herself — a  true  young  Quakeress  does 
not  accept  a  gold  watch  from  a  man  whom  she 
proposes  to  keep  at  a  distance.  But  this  was  a  very 
discreet  young  man ;  he  would  not  thrust  the  watch 
in  her  face  and  confuse  her  bashfulness.  Unob- 
trusively he  laid  it  in  her  path — laid  it  on  this  very 
seat  under  the  wall,  at  which  our  grandfather  points 
with  his  baggy  umbrella;  for  this  way  she  would 
pass,  she  would  see  the  token,  she  would  under- 
stand. So  the  young  man  steals  to  the  seat, 
deposits  his  offering  and  effaces  himself.  But  what 
happens  when  a  man  is  courting  one  of  seven 
sisters  ?  Of  course  the  other  six  are  on  the  tiptoe  of 
curiosity  and  their  prying  eyes  are  everywhere. 
The  six  other  Miss  Gurneys,  I  tell  you,  were  all  on 
the  spot,  hidden  among  the  bushes,  when  Betsy 

104 


IN   THE   GARDEN 

(they  called  her  Betsy)  came  strolling  past  the  seat, 
eyed  the  fatal  gift  and  stood  hesitating.  She 
paused,  she  mused,  she  turned  away.  But  her 
sisters  knew  their  Betsy,  you  may  be  sure;  they 
waited  and  watched ;  and  I  need  scarcely  say  that 
the  ridiculous  girl  was  presently  seen  edging  back 
towards  the  seat  again,  and  she  picked  up  the  watch, 
and  she  took  the  young  man  Fry,  and  by  every 
account  she  was  a  good  wife  to  him — a  good  wife, 
but  perhaps,  if  I  may  hint  as  much,  a  little  less 
interested  in  her  own  hearth  than  in  her  prisoners 
and  her  admirable  activities  on  their  behalf.  Well, 
it  is  long  ago;  and  I  never  much  believed  in  the 
story  of  the  watch,  as  I  said,  though  it  was  enter- 
taining to  listen  to  grandfather  as  he  told  it  with 
twinkles  and  chuckles.  Such  was  the  fame  of  the 
seat,  however,  and  I  would  not  decry  it. 

2 

Enough  of  that ;  for  us  this  region  of  the  garden 
had  better  titles.  Close  against  the  seat  was  a  small 
ivy-mantled  tool-house;  and  further  along,  in  an 
angle  of  the  wall,  there  was  a  tiny  round  pond,  with 
a  fountain,  where  the  motionless  noses  of  frogs 
protruded  among  the  draggle  of  slimy  green  weed ; 
and  beside  it  there  was  a  green-house,  full  of  damp 
and  luscious  fragrance ;  and  then  again  there  was  a 
door  that  led  to  the  secret  close  of  the  quince- tree, 
and  all  the  mazes  of  attraction  that  lay  in  that 
quarter.  How  easy  to  be  led  on  and  on — but  I  tend 
to  return  to  the  legendary  seat,  partly  because  I 
should  have  collected  a  treasury  there  of  odds  and 
ends  (you  know  how  one  accumulates  a  heap  of 

105 


E ARLH AM 

things  which  it  seems  necessary  to  preserve,  in  the 
course  of  a  morning),  partly  because  I  must  take 
proper  stock  of  this  neighbourhood  before  wander- 
ing further.  From  the  Dutch  garden  there  was  a 
charming  view  of  the  rambhng  roofs  and  chimneys 
of  the  house.  You  saw  them  sHced  off,  so  to  speak, 
by  the  Hne  of  the  garden-wall,  with  its  spray  and 
foam  of  white  clematis.  The  gables,  the  tiled  slopes 
at  odd  angles,  the  beautiful  chimneys  in  their 
ruffles  of  greenery,  made  a  bewildering  mass,  a  view 
like  that  of  a  little  old  red-roofed  town,  weather- 
stained  to  a  soft  richness  of  rose-red  and  tawny- 
brown.  The  outbuildings,  the  brew-house  and  the 
stables,  ranged  away  to  the  right,  with  a  yellower 
rust  of  lichen  dappled  over  their  ash-grey  tiles; 
the  great  heads  of  the  limes  and  chestnuts  rose 
sumptuously  behind  them. 

As  for  the  queer  collection  of  objects  that  by  now 
I  may  have  amassed  in  my  corner,  I  could  tell  a 
story  about  each  of  them  if  I  had  the  face  to  do  so. 
But  it  is  difficult  to  share  with  another  the  peculiar 
sense  of  their  value — how  it  is  that  a  mossed  stone, 
one  of  a  hundred,  or  a  handful  of  duckweed  squeezed 
out  like  a  sponge,  or  a  bunch  of  crisp  and  crackling 
"  everlastings,"  may  have  appealed  to  one  as 
striking  and  desirable,  apt  for  possession.  They  are 
collected  and  bestowed  with  care — but  not  of  these 
will  I  speak.  There  was  a  small  covered  basket, 
however,  about  three  inches  deep,  of  which  some- 
thing may  be  said,  though  it  has  been  kept  a  secret 
hitherto.  We  had  brought  that  basket  from  home, 
from  far  away,  on  the  journey  to  Earlham,  and 
nobody  but  the  children  knew  what  it  contained. 

io6 


L 


IN   THE   GARDEN 

A  beetle,  very  large,  black  as  ebony,  with  a  little 
earth  for  it  to  burrow  in  on  the  way — it  was  a  beetle 
that  we  had  brought  hither,  intending  to  set  it  free 
in  the  garden  at  Earlham.  And  now  was  the 
moment;  the  beetle  stepped  forth  upon  alien 
ground,  doubtfully  paced  and  paused ;  and  I  cannot 
forget  the  incident,  now  that  the  crunch  of  the 
gravel  and  the  dry  smell  of  the  box-borders  is 
about  me  again,  at  ten  o'clock  of  a  fine  summer 
morning.  The  beetle  may  finally  have  advanced 
along  Wilberforce's  Walk,  which  ran  in  a  straight 
vista  down  the  edge  of  the  shrubbery  in  this  quarter. 
Wilberforce  perhaps,  on  just  such  a  morning,  once 
strolled  there  with  Uncle  Joseph  John,  plotting  the 
holy  war  upon  the  slave-driver;  the  path  was 
named  after  him.  It  was  long  and  straight  and 
shady ;  the  two  friends  in  their  broad-brimmed  hats 
could  just  have  walked  abreast;  and  you  would 
have  seen  them  pass  out  into  sunshine  at  the  far  end, 
as  they  turned  to  follow  the  path  which  made  the 
circuit  of  the  lawn. 

The  dajT^  grew  much  hotter  very  soon ;  even  the 
green  pool  in  the  corner  of  the  Dutch  garden  had 
lost  its  chill,  when  I  hung  over  the  railing  that 
surrounded  its  stone  Up  and  plunged  a  hand  into 
the  clammy  duckweed.  Against  the  wall  in  that 
corner  there  was  a  splendid  fig-tree ;  but  we  could 
afford  to  neglect  the  figs.  There  was  better  to  come, 
and  the  way  to  it,  if  I  choose  to  take  the  way,  is 
immediately  here.  Hard  by  the  pool  there  is  a  door 
in  the  brick  wall ;  and  dropping  my  lump  of  green 
ooze,  which  keeps  the  stamp  of  the  fingers  that 
squeezed  it,  I  turn  to  grasp  the  smooth  handle  of  the 

107 


E ARLH AM 

door.  Here,  as  ever,  I  am  delayed  by  the  pleasant 
feel  of  the  fluted  and  egg-shaped  knob — the  more  so 
that  it  works  very  stiffly,  needing  a  powerful  wrench. 
Outside  lay  the  paddock,  and  then  the  kitchen- 
garden;  and  no  doubt  there  comes  a  time,  under 
the  towering  noon-day,  when  there  is  an  imperious 
call  in  that  direction.  I  don't  know  that  the  moment 
has  arrived  just  yet ;  but  meanwhile  it  would  be  as 
well  to  give  a  glance  round  the  paddock.  So  the 
door  swings  open,  and  shuts  behind  me  with  its 
familiar  thump. 


3 

Here  was  a  change  of  scene.  A  rough  track  ran 
along  this  outer  face  of  the  wall,  heading  for  the 
park,  and  the  paddock  was  just  over  the  way.  It 
was  a  small  stretch  of  open  grass,  and  principally 
it  was  interesting  on  account  of  the  ice-house,  which 
stood  at  one  end  of  it.  Stood  ? — it  lay  buried  rather, 
with  the  turf  rolling  over  it  in  a  hump,  like  a  gigantic 
grave.  It  was  entered,  or  had  been  of  old,  by  a  low 
door  with  wooden  bars ;  but  I  suppose  it  had  long 
fallen  out  of  use.  I  think  we  used  to  hear  that  it  had 
been  the  habit  to  hack  great  blocks  of  ice  in  winter 
out  of  the  frozen  pond,  down  in  the  park,  and  store 
them  away  in  this  kingly  tomb ;  but  somehow  that 
information  never  explained  the  place  for  me.  An 
ice-house,  silent,  glittering,  steel-blue — a  dazzling 
thought !  And  nothing  was  to  be  seen  but  a  grassy 
mound  and  a  low  doorway,  hinting  at  a  vault  full 
of  mouldering  bones.  Where,  then,  was  the  house 
of  ice  ?     I  never  got  that  question  straight  in  my 

io8 


IN  THE  GARDEN 

mind,  and  the  note  of  perplexity  still  pervades  this 
end  of  the  paddock. 

I  do  not  follow  the  rough  cart-road  into  the  park ; 
I  face  in  the  other  direction,  edging  along  in  the 
shadow  of  the  garden- wall.  Further  and  further  it 
ran,  and  at  one  point  it  bore  on  its  breast  a  battered 
target,  dimly  painted  with  the  form  of  an  antlered 
stag.  At  times  our  uncles  used  to  bang  and  blaze 
at  the  runnable  stag  from  the  paddock ;  but  all  is 
peaceful  at  this  hour,  and  I  can  narrowly  inspect  the 
riddled  form  of  the  great  beast.  Still  clinging  to  the 
wall  I  pass  the  entrance  to  the  back-yard — that 
green  common  which  I  looked  out  upon,  you  may 
remember,  while  the  gardener  was  arranging  the 
flowers  and  the  poor  man  from  Norwich  sat  patient 
in  his  corner.  I  pass  on,  and  now  I  am  very  near 
the  gate  of  the  kitchen-garden;  but  the  cart-road 
avoids  it,  and  presently  plunges  into  the  shadow  of  a 
grove  of  horse-chestnuts,  to  join  the  drive,  the  main 
approach  to  the  front-door  of  the  house.  So  I  have 
skirted  round  the  group  of  outbuildings,  the  suburbs 
of  the  house ;  and  having  once  arrived  among  the 
horse-chestnuts  I  might  not  find  it  easy  to  get 
further  for  the  moment.  For  if  pebbles  and  chunks 
of  moss  and  seed-pods  and  such  things  seem  to  cry 
out  to  be  "  collected,"  what  about  the  delicious 
objects,  brown  and  satin-smooth,  that  strew  the 
ground  under  these  trees?  A  chestnut,  breaking 
out  of  its  thorny  husk  in  beautifully  fitted  segments 
— and  best  of  all  when  it  is  unripe,  creamily  piebald 
— has  a  charm  irresistible,  no  doubt ;  the  trouble  is 
only  that  they  are  too  plentiful,  scattered  by  the 
thousand,  so  that  they  want  the  lasting  appeal  of 

109 


EARLHAM 

rarity.  Let  them  lie,  after  all ;  the  stables  are  near 
by,  and  there  is  an  audible  hissing  and  stamping 
and  clanking  that  entices  me  thither. 

The  coachman  was  a  very  handsome  man,  fresh- 
coloured,  curly-headed ;  I  can  describe  him  exactly 
by  saying  that  he  looked  Hke  one  of  those  fine  racy 
gentlemen,  half  squires,  half  farmers,  who  figure  in 
the  novels  of  George  EHot,  of  Mrs.  Gaskell ;  there  is 
more  than  one  of  them,  I  think,  in  Cranford  alone. 
He  bloomed  and  beamed  upon  the  carriage-box; 
but  properly  he  should  always  have  driven  a  high 
dog-cart,  spanking  cheerily  off  to  market  and 
exchanging  a  seasonable  pleasantry  with  every  one 
on  the  road.  That  was  his  look,  his  type;  but 
perhaps  there  was  an  indolent  ease  in  his  gesture 
which  belied  it,  and  I  dare  say  Mrs.  Gaskell' s  brisk 
north-country  eye  would  have  rejected  him  from  her 
gallery.  He  and  his  underling  seemed  busy  and 
active  enough,  however,  as  we  drifted  into  the  stable- 
yard  to  watch  the  grooming  of  the  horses — that 
quaint  old  operation,  unknown,  I  suppose,  to  many 
young  observers  to-day.  It  is  not  at  all  like  the 
oleaginous  smearing  and  dabbing  of  a  motor-car, 
which  turns  the  stable-hand  into  a  grimy  hybrid  of 
a  stoker  and  a  rag-picker.  Our  friend  and  his  under- 
ling were  not  dingily  messing  with  oil-cans  and  dirty 
rags ;  they  were  stamping  about  in  their  thick  clog- 
boots  and  sluicing  their  horses'  legs  with  clean 
buckets  of  water,  they  were  rubbing  and  hissing  in 
an  atmosphere  of  pungent  freshness  and  coolness — 
how  different  from  the  "  savour  of  poisonous  brass 
and  metal  sick  "  that  to-day  hangs  heavy  and 
sluggish  in  the  stable-yard !    The  coach-house,  too, 

no 


IN  THE    GARDEN 

was  a  rare  place,  and  the  thin  staleness  of  the  air 
inside  a  shut  carriage  was  not  less  agreeable  in  its 
way  than  the  rich  tang  of  the  stalls  and  the  loose- 
boxes. 

The  venerable  pile  of  the  stables  included  lofts, 
raftered  spaces  aromatic  with  apples,  with  hay, 
roof-cavities  where  shafts  of  powdered  light  fell 
slanting  on  the  planked  floors.  It  reminds  one  of  a 
ship — would  not  a  steep  ladder,  suddenly  opening 
at  your  feet  through  a  square  hole  in  the  boards, 
be  what  they  call  a  "  companion-way?  "  There  is 
deck  upon  deck; — but  on  the  whole  I  prefer  the 
open  air,  and  the  green  back-court,  of  which  the 
stable-building  forms  one  side.  There  the  pump, 
the  great  pump  under  its  cloister  in  the  corner," 
would  attract  me  first.  Surely  it  was  remarkable ; 
under  the  cloister-roof  a  beam  revolved  upon  a 
central  pillar,  and  there  dangled  from  the  beam  a 
kind  of  collar,  through  which  the  horse's  head  was 
thrust.  The  collar  was  made  fast;  and  the  horse 
tramped  round  and  round  the  pillar,  carrying  the 
beam,  you  see,  along  with  him.  So  the  water  was 
pumped  into  the  house ;  the  mouth  of  the  well  was 
close  by,  under  the  kitchen  window,  and  while  the 
horse  was  at  work  you  could  hear  that  horrible 
noise  of  pulsing  jangling  water,  far  down  in  the 
blackness,  which  to  some  of  us  is  so  singularly 
unnerving.  I  disquiet  myself  without  need,  how- 
ever; for  at  this  hour  the  three  slender  rods  that 
dive  into  the  depth  are  stiU  and  silent ;  it  was  long 
ago,  in  the  very  early  morning,  when  I  heard  the 
measured  thud  of  the  pump  in  action.  I  have  now 
no  hesitation  in  screwing  past  the  well-head  to  grasp 

III 


EARLHAM 

the  bars  of  the  kitchen  window.  The  head  of  Mrs. 
Chapman's  handmaid  appeared  within,  and  I  told 
her  of  the  projected  plan  of  a  picnic  on  the  river. 
"  I  'ope  you  won't  get  drownded  and  all,"  she  said 
pleasantly. 

The  rough  grass  of  the  court  lifted  gently  away 
from  the  back-door.  The  stable-building  to  the 
left,  of  worn  old  flint  and  brick,  was  largely  covered 
by  an  ancient  pear-tree,  trained  against  the  wall; 
and  under  the  rim  of  the  eaves  there  was  a  sun-dial, 
on  which  I  always  tried  to  read  the  hour  and  never 
succeeded.  That  was  one  side  of  the  court ;  on  the 
other,  to  the  right,  there  was  a  low  line  of  red  brick- 
work— and  I  am  greatly  surprised  to  find  that  I 
cannot  account  for  the  whole  of  it.  The  little 
chamber  with  the  brick  oven,  where  Mrs.  Chapman 
baked  the  bread — that  was  there;  but  what  else? 
It  is  the  first  bhnd  spot  that  I  have  discovered  in  the 
insatiable  eye  of  remembrance.  I  scan  that  low 
wall,  which  certainly  had  doors  and  windows  in  it — 
first  a  door  that  led  to  the  enclosure  of  the  quince, 
and  then  the  bake-house.  But  there  was  more ;  and 
by  some  chance  the  blur  of  a  mist  descends  in  that 
quarter — odd  and  bitter  it  is  to  feel  so  helpless  to 
dispel  it.  All  is  clear  again,  however,  at  the  upper 
end  of  the  green  patch,  and  I  march  thither  in  full 
confidence. 

There  was  here  a  curiosity.  Against  the  bounding 
wall  stood  an  aviary,  a  space  of  wirework  with  a 
small  wooden  hut  on  either  side;  and  within  this 
cage  were  two  great  glowering  birds — eagles.  A 
pair  of  golden  eagles  had  been  acquired,  I  don't 
know  where  or  how,  by  one  of  our  uncles ;  and  here 

112 


IN  THE  GARDEN 

in  our  time  they  were  living  out  their  old  age. 
Charles  and  Maria — they  stared  mutely,  with  fixed 
and  sinister  eyes.  Their  look  was  hostile  and 
revengeful ;  it  was  our  theory  that  to  venture  into 
their  cage  would  mean  instant  death — to  any  one, 
that  is,  but  our  remarkable  friend  the  butler,  who 
flung  open  the  cage-door,  strode  in  and  patted  them 
familiarly  on  their  humped  backs.  I  don't  think 
they  soared  and  chafed  in  spirit,  I  think  their 
minds  were  set  on  the  lumps  and  gobbets  of  name- 
less flesh  that  were  brought  them  by  our  friend ;  but 
when  one  of  them,  after  fixing  us  with  a  yellow 
unwinking  gaze,  suddenly  lurched  and  shoiddered 
off  his  perch  and  flopped  towards  the  side  of  the 
cage,  it  was  always  an  effort  to  hold  firm  and  affront 
him  without  giving  way,  even  with  the  wire  between 
us.  There  came  at  length  a  day  when  we  found, 
returning  to  Earlham,  that  the  aviary  had  vanished. 
Charles  and  Maria  were  dead  and  stuffed ;  they  had 
gone  indoors  to  join  the  fascinating  company  upon 
the  landing  of  the  staircase,  with  the  herons  and 
the  ruffs.  I  should  like  to  watch  them  humping 
their  backs  for  Sidell  to  scratch  them  again. 

And  next  to  the  cage  of  the  eagles,  against  the 
same  wall,  was  the  fives'-court,  and  the  patter  of  the 
balls  was  to  be  heard  there  at  times.  It  was  a  court 
of  archaic  design,  and  the  grass  grew  freely  between 
the  flags ;  but  I  certainly  hear  the  noise  of  the  baUs 
and  the  scuffling  of  feet,  while  I  stray  in  this  region. 
You  could  not  very  well  look  on  at  the  game, 
however,  for  it  was  a  court  enclosed  upon  all  four 
sides,  with  a  small  entrance-gate  at  one  corner; 
there  was  no  proper  view  to  be  had  of  the  young  men 

113  I 


EARLHAM 

at  their  game,  as  they  leaped  and  scuffled,  calhng 
the  score  in  sharp  monosyllables.  I  should  pass  on, 
therefore,  and  issue  out  once  more  into  the  quarter 
of  the  paddock,  plainly  veering  this  time  towards 
the  gate  of  the  kitchen-garden. 

4 
A  high  wooden  gate,  painted  white — my  hand  is 

on  the  latch,  and  it  sticks  and  jams  for  a  moment. 

Once  within  the  gate  I  should  turn,  beyond  question, 

to  the  right.    A  few  yards  of  cindery  path,  and  then 

the  floor  is  firm  and  smooth  under  my  feet,  and  I  am 

in  the  shade  of  a  wonderful  old  tree.    It  is  a  tree 

of  great  limbs,  heavy  with  age ;  its  failing  arms  are 

propped  here  and  there  upon  stout  crutches.    But 

its  leafage  is  thick  and  abundant;  and  lurking 

among  the  leaves,  or  better  still,  strewing  the  bare 

floor,  here  are  the  mulberries  in  their  hundreds. 

To  a  few  of  us  it  is  revealed  that  the  mulberry  is 

paragon   and  nonsuch   among   the   fruits   of   the 

garden ;  it  is  what  all  the  rest  of  them  would  be  if 

they  could.     And  surely  the  path  that  advances 

towards   a   mulberry-tree   on   a   morning   of  late 

summer,  that  lingers  about  the  ample  trunk  and 

spreads  a  clean  cool  surface  beneath  its  shade — 

that  is  the  path  to  follow,  now  and  ever.    There  is 

this  about  mulberries,  that  you  can  only  attain  to 

them  on  their  own  ground;  you  must  go  to  them, 

search   them   out   where   they  he;  they   are   too 

precious  and  tender,  with  their  bursting  purple 

juices,  to  be  handled  and  transported  to  meet  you. 

A  ripe  black  mulberry  is  a  gift  to  you  direct  from 

the  opulent  tree ;  and  I  cannot  help  it  if  I  pass  on 

114 


IN  THE  GARDEN 

my  way,  after  an  interval,  plentifully  stained  with 
noble  dyes. 

Just  beyond  the  mulberry-tree  you  come  to  the 
region  of  the  hot-houses.  And  beware ! — for  peering 
in  at  the  door  of  the  earth-cool  potting-shed,  I 
caught  sight  of  the  gardener,  and  I  own  I  was 
chilled  by  his  eye.  He  was  a  hard  man,  I  always 
thought — angular,  light-eyed,  with  a  wisp  of  fox- 
red  beard;  his  glance  was  quelling,  it  was  Uke  a 
thin  whistle  of  wind  in  the  golden  calm  of  the 
kitchen  garden.  We  could  not  feel  at  ease  in  this 
saturnine  presence,  not  though  now  and  again,  as 
I  remember,  he  would  silently  lead  us  to  the  peach- 
house  or  the  vinery  and  offer  us  each  a  selected 
portion.  I  expect  we  did  him  an  injustice,  and  I 
perfectly  see  that  he  had  good  reason  to  lock  those 
hot-houses  and  pocket  the  key ;  but  the  sun  shone 
warmer  when  he  turned,  still  without  a  word,  and 
marched  away  to  the  white  gate.  The  other  good 
souls,  who  were  digging  among  the  cabbages  or 
skilfully  tapping  the  plants  out  of  their  pots  in  the 
cool  shed — they  were  all  friendliness ;  and  especially 
I  am  glad  to  loiter  and  stare  where  old  Gayford 
bends  over  his  spade.  For  how  many  years,  I 
wonder,  had  he  been  digging  the  borders  and 
banking  the  celery-beds  at  Earlham?  The  sing- 
song drawl  of  his  Norfolk  speech  echoes  tunefully 
from  a  far  distance. 

And  now  for  the  orchid-houses,  here  at  hand,  of 
which  I  seem  able  to  number  several.  Our  grand- 
father was  a  studious  collector  and  cultivator  of 
orchids ;  and  surely  that  was  an  exotic  amusement 
which  fitted  oddly  with  his  home-grown  piety  and 

115 


E ARLH AM 

simplicity.  Some  queer  monstrosity  of  a  cattleya  or 
an  odontoglossum  always  stood  in  a  tiny  glass  on  his 
writing-table,  cheek  by  jowl  with  a  Gloire  de  Dijon 
or  a  Marechal  Niel ;  it  did  not  strike  him  that  the 
orchid  had  an  impious  look  beside  the  rose.  These 
houses  in  the  kitchen-garden  were  full  of  fantastic 
outlandish  creatures,  dangling  and  writhing  in 
vaporous  heat ;  and  his  black  coat,  his  clerical  white 
tie,  his  stout  umbrella,  appear  incongruously  to  me 
now,  among  that  luxuriance  of  streaked  and  slashed 
and  maculated  colour,  more  flesh  than  flower.  It 
was  suitable  that  he  should  fondle  his  roses  in  the 
open  air;  but  indeed  his  love  of  flowers  was  not 
sentimental,  not  that  of  the  mild  old  clergyman 
indulging  a  hobby — it  was  grave  and  scholarly. 
I  think  of  him  as  glancing  at  the  rose  with  secret 
warmth,  but  as  speaking  of  it  only  to  name  the 
species  with  a  quiet  interest;  and  the  same  tone 
would  serve  in  the  orchid-house,  when  he  guided 
us  among  the  steaming  tiers  of  the  stove-plants. 
He  was  scientific,  he  was  slightly  distant  with  his 
flowers  of  whatever  complexion ;  so  that  his  associa- 
tion with  these  shameless  languorous  aliens  was  not 
compromising.  They  were  certainly  magnificent; 
we  gaped  in  wonder,  and  enjoyed  the  stifling 
vapour-bath  of  the  tropical  forest. 

But  that  is  an  interlude ;  I  am  soon  out  of  doors 
and  at  home  again,  where  the  bordered  walk  runs 
down  the  middle  of  the  kitchen-garden.  Such  a  tall 
pale  hollyhock  (with  its  "  talking  eyes,"  as  Brown- 
ing said  of  another  who  was  taU  and  pale)  stands 
at  my  right  hand — tall  and  gracious,  lemon-pale, 
towering  up  to  the  laden  apple-bough  that  leans 

ii6 


IN  THE  GARDEN 

over  the  path.  Apples  of  gold,  a  kind  of  cowslip 
gold,  clear  and  unflushed,  were  heaped  in  great 
drifts  upon  the  trees  which  shadowed  that  walk; 
rose-red  apples  too,  well  burnished,  shone  in  their 
darker  and  crisper  leafage.  The  path  ran  straight 
ahead,  dappled  and  barred  with  sunlight,  to  the 
southern  fruit-wall  at  the  end.  There  I  see  a 
covered  seat  against  the  wall,  a  recess  enarched  with 
clematis  and  honeysuckle ;  and  the  seat  is  occupied 
by  the  bee-hive,  to  which  the  bees  come  swinging 
down  from  their  voyages  in  all  quarters.  Now  turn 
to  the  right,  along  the  face  of  the  wall,  and  stop 
just  where  I  tell  you,  after  twenty  yards  or  so. 
These  are  plums  indeed — there  are  none  better  in 
the  garden.  They  grow  on  the  wall  at  this  point 
and  nowhere  else,  these  particular  plums;  the 
round  sort,  almost  as  big  as  peaches,  with  that 
wonderful  blue  powder-bloom.  And  then  to  the 
right  again ;  and  there  is  the  vast  netted  enclosure 
of  the  currants  and  the  gooseberries.  It  is  easy  to 
filch  open  the  door  of  that  great  cage;  but  really 
I  think  I  could  pass  it  by  just  now,  after  all  that 
has  happened  already.  In  the  height  of  the  noonday 
the  kitchen-garden  seems  suddenly  to  become  one 
broad  blaze,  and  I  could  wish  to  find  myself  picked 
up  in  a  moment  and  carried  elsewhere.  It  is  an 
endless  journey  back  to  the  white  gate  in  the  corner. 

5 

It  was  pleasant  to  reach  the  thick  shade  of  the 

chestnuts  in  the  drive  again,  where  it  sidled  towards 
the  north  front  of  the  house.  I  think  I  have  said 
that  the  house  on  this  side  was  bare  and  buff-white 

117 


EARLHAM 

with  plaster,  a  great  contrast  to  the  vines  and  roses 
and  red  brick  of  the  face  towards  the  garden.  Here, 
to  the  north,  two  wings  of  the  house  reached  out, 
enfolding  a  sweep  of  loose  gravel;  so  that  the 
carriage,  as  it  wheeled  round  to  the  steps  of  the 
front-door,  entered  a  small  echoing  court-yard — ^you 
might  call  it  a  court-yard,  though  the  fourth  side 
was  open.  If  I  should  take  my  stand  on  the  semi- 
circle of  the  steps  I  should  look  straight  down  the 
lime-avenue  and  the  drive  that  runs  out  there  to 
the  church  and  the  village ;  the  other  approach,  by 
way  of  the  chestnuts,  turns  in  from  the  right,  and 
that  is  the  direction  of  Norwich,  the  Norwich  road 
of  arrival  and  departure. 

These  steps  of  the  front-door  delay  me  unex- 
pectedly; they  are  more  interesting  than  I  had 
remembered.  The  door  itself,  in  the  first  place, 
and  the  big  knocker,  and  the  pediment  over  the 
door — and  then  on  either  side,  under  the  wall  of  the 
house,  iron-barred  gratings  in  the  gravelled  floor, 
and  brick  cavities  beneath  them,  fringed  with  ferns 
— and  what  is  more,  all  the  windows  of  the  wing  to 
the  left  are  sham  and  blank,  a  peculiarity  that  takes 
my  fancy;  and  a  good  many  minutes  have  flown 
while  I  review  these  points  in  order,  not  forgetting 
to  count  the  sham  windows  with  care,  six  in  all, 
two  in  each  storey.  On  that  wall,  moreover,  is  the 
bell-handle  which  the  coachman  seizes  as  we  drive 
up  to  the  door.  How  long,  how  long  could  I  be 
occupied  in  these  blest  meditations?  I  have 
nothing  to  show  for  them  but  a  collection  of  facts, 
tiny  facts  of  a  knocker  and  a  grating,  a  cornice, 
the   wire   of   a   bell,   amassed   and   assorted   and 

ii8 


IN  THE  GARDEN 

arranged  till  they  lie  in  their  receptacle  like  the  bits 
of  a  puzzle.  Only  when  each  is  neatly  in  its  place, 
only  when  I  am  secure  in  possession  of  them  all, 
am  I  ready  to  leave  them  and  pass  on.  No  scholar, 
no  laborious  and  disinterested  pedant,  hangs  more 
lovingly  than  a  child  over  a  fact,  a  mere  fact  as  such. 
I  neither  criticize  nor  reflect;  from  the  creamy 
texture  of  the  plaster  to  the  toad  among  the  ferns, 
everything  that  I  add  to  my  collection  has  an  equal 
value,  is  inserted  in  its  place  with  the  same  intent 
concentration  of  care.  I  could  really  feel  impatient 
at  the  thought  of  that  unremitting  gaze,  bovine 
positively,  which  refuses  to  be  crossed  or  disturbed. 
What  could  the  child  be  about,  loitering  there  upon 
the  door-steps  in  a  vacant  dream?  But  that  is 
unreasonable ;  I  enjoy  my  hoard  of  facts  at  this 
late  hour,  and  I  owe  them  all  to  the  slow  stare  of  the 
child. 

So  much  for  that.  Now  I  should  wish  to  turn  the 
corner  of  the  blind-eyed  wing,  and  pass  through  the 
small  iron  gate  in  the  raihng  there.  This  is  a  side- 
way  into  the  garden,  and  first  I  find  myself  in  the 
narrow  grassy  dell  of  the  weeping  ash.  It  is  clear, 
therefore,  that  the  bow-window  of  the  ante-room, 
with  its  view  of  the  ash,  projects  at  this  end  of  this 
wing  of  the  house.  It  does ;  and  the  mossy  green 
dell  runs  away  alongside  of  the  lime  avenue.  A 
narrow  strip  of  mown  grass,  spongy  with  moss,  set 
with  a  few  flower-beds — I  think  of  it  as  a  dell 
because  it  lies  like  a  trough  between  the  great 
breezy  limes  on  this  side  and  a  shrubbery  of  oaks 
on  that.  The  grass  is  like  the  deepest  plush  to 
walk  on,  for  it  is  a  very  shady  recess,  and  the  roots 

119 


E ARLHAM 

of  the  moss  are  always  damp.  The  weeping  boughs 
of  the  ash  drop  almost  to  the  ground;  you  may 
push  them  aside  like  a  curtain,  letting  them  fall 
behind  you;  and  so  thickly  they  are  woven,  it  is 
certainly  as  good  as  a  bell-tent.  This  oak-shrubbery 
here,  I  may  say,  is  perhaps  the  best  in  the  garden ; 
it  lies  on  uneven  ground,  and  under  the  trees  is  a 
scrub  of  bushes,  with  here  and  there  a  gravelly 
break  or  clearing,  and  there  is  a  bank  which  is 
covered  with  those  strange  paper  seed-heads  of  the 
plant  called  honesty ;  and  it  is  a  wood  that  is  always, 
always  tuneful  with  the  crooning  of  pigeons,  so 
much  so  that  never  once  have  I  heard  the  coo  of  a 
wood-pigeon  in  a  tree  without  instantly  flashing 
away  to  the  oaks  at  Earlham,  to  tread  the  spongy 
grass  again  and  thrust  in  among  the  rusthng  stalks 
of  the  honesty.  And  then  a  step  or  two  takes  me 
out  of  the  wood  and  on  to  the  west  lawn. 

Yes,  I  reach  the  west  lawn,  where  the  view  opens 
out  over  the  park  and  down  to  the  river.  This  lawn 
is  not  a  great  plain,  like  the  other.  It  is  small; 
hcJf  a  minute  will  bring  me  to  the  drop  of  the  sunk 
fence  on  the  further  side.  That  is  our  way  to  the 
river  and  the  boat-house;  the  heronry  is  down 
there,  and  the  rookery  and  the  water-meadows 
beyond  it.  But  all  that  is  not  for  this  morning,  and 
there  is  still  plenty  of  ruminant  adventure  laid  up 
in  the  precinct  of  the  garden,  without  going  further 
afield.  I  have  reached  the  west  lawn,  and  still  I 
have  not  touched  the  wilderness  of  long  grass  where 
the  rain-gauge  is,  and  the  mossy  path  that  encircles 
it,  and  the  laurels  and  the  "  sulky- walk  "  (why 
sulky? — ^you  would  never  guess;  but  wait).     A 

120 


IN  THE  GARDEN 

mazy  paradise  still  lies  ahead,  before  I  shaU  have 
completed  the  circuit  of  the  garden.  And  even  as  I 
stand  wavering,  doubtful  which  delight  to  follow 
next,  the  bell  rings  out  from  the  distant  belfry  of 
the  kitchen,  and  the  endless  morning  has  come  to 
an  end.  Luncheon! — the  bell  was  a  signal  that  it 
was  time  to  go  in  and  get  your  face  washed.  Our 
grandmother,  perhaps,  was  strolling  in  the  sulky- 
walk,  enjoying  the  shadow.  "  Well,  dear  children, 
have  you  had  a  nice  long  morning  in  the  garden  ?  " 
A  timeless  morning  it  had  seemed,  till  this  moment ; 
and  now  it  was  suddenly  finished,  caught  in  the 
flying  hours.  As  I  entered  the  garden-door  my 
mulberry-dyes  did  not  escape  the  notice  of  an 
uncle,  who  was  lounging  loosely  and  mightily  in 
the  porch. 

6 

An  hour  later  the  whole  company  was  gathered  in 
a  shady  spot,  somewhere  on  the  edge  of  the  great 
lawn,  sociably  relaxed.  And  here  is  a  historic  note. 
One  of  the  young  men  was  describing,  I  remember, 
a  new-fashioned  game,  introduced  from  elsewhere, 
that  he  had  lately  seen  played,  had  played  himself ; 
and  I  listened  to  his  account  with  curiosity.  The 
game  was  played  over  wide  spaces  of  country,  with 
a  smiting  of  balls  that  had  to  be  driven  from  point 
to  point.  There  were  marked  stages  in  the  course 
to  be  followed,  and  you  had  to  drive  your  own  little 
ball  through  each  of  them,  your  object  being  to 
outdo  your  opponent — in  speed,  as  I  understood, 
not  very  clearly  following  the  explanation  in  this 
matter.    A  vision  of  two  men  racing  over  bare  hills, 

121 


E ARLH AM 

brandishing  some  form  of  croquet-mallet  against 
the  sky  as  they  sped — a  vision  all  mingled  with  the 
dapple  of  sunlight  under  the  oak-tree,  and  the 
softness  of  the  brown  rug  on  which  I  lay  stretched, 
and  the  green  purity  of  the  acorns  with  which  I  was 
playing — this  picture,  this  complexity  of  sensation, 
assumed  a  name,  as  our  uncle  developed  his  tale, 
which  had  the  sound  of  "  goff."  Historic  indeed; 
not  one  of  the  party  had  ever  seen  the  game,  except 
this  uncle,  and  there  was  something  wild  and  grand 
about  my  picture  that  later  history  has  signally 
failed  to  fulfil. 

The  question  of  the  "  goff  "  was  debated  lan- 
guidly ;  it  was  a  prime  hot  afternoon.  Grandfather 
had  changed  his  long  black  coat  for  a  long  grey 
one,  thin  like  paper ;  and  over  my  acorns  I  had  an 
ear  for  his  story  of  its  purchase.  He  had  seen  it 
in  a  shop-window  on  his  travels,  had  asked  the 
price.  Fifteen  shillings — "  Then  done  widge  you!  " 
cried  grandfather;  I  dehghted  in  the  humorous 
bucolic  turns  (if  that  is  what  they  were)  of  his  talk. 
But  as  usual  he  was  only  beaming  and  pausing  on 
the  edge  of  the  group.  He  soon  tramped  off  to  his 
study ;  and  I  suppose  the  rest  of  the  party  drifted 
and  scattered,  for  certainly  before  long  the  children 
were  being  "  read  to,"  while  they  were  held  to 
their  repose  on  the  brown  rug.  I  forget  the  reading 
— or  rather  I  could  easily  remember  it  if  I  chose, 
but  I  prefer  to  let  it  sing  in  my  ears  as  a  tune 
without  words,  drowsily  lulling.  Perhaps  it  was 
a  chapter  of  our  peerless  Dickens — or  was  it  only 
an  artless  anecdote  of  a  pair  of  children  who  roamed 
and  played  in  a  beautiful  old  garden?     I  must 

122 


IN  THE  GARDEN 

think  that  our  taste  was  readily  satisfied.  A  story 
is  a  story,  and  if  it  has  plenty  of  detail,  the  minuter 
the  better,  so  that  you  can  see  for  yourself  what  is 
happening  in  it,  I  confess  it  matters  little  to  me 
whether  it  is  a  story  of  Dickens  or  a  story  of  Louisa 
Alcott.  It  is  definition,  precision  that  we  want,  no 
cloudy  fancies.  Whether  it  is  Great  Expectations  or 
Harry  and  Laura,  The  Rose  and  the  Ring  or  Little 
Men,  our  cry  is  equally  punctual  when  the  last 
page  is  turned.  "  Now  begin  it  again  " — after 
living  so  deeply  into  the  company  of  a  book  one 
does  not  easily  forsake  it  for  another,  to  make  the 
acquaintance  of  a  set  of  strangers.  Yet  there  are 
chords,  too,  in  the  soul  which  sometimes  thrill  with 
a  different  rapture,  different  in  kind.  The  delight 
of  a  story  is  one  thing,  and  I  love  it  well ;  I  transfer 
the  story  into  my  life,  and  live  on  it,  feed  on  it,  in 
pleasant  tracts  of  rumination.  But  there  is  also 
the  thrill  of  the  sound  of  words,  so  piercing,  so 
rending  that  it  is  hardly  to  be  called  a  pleasure, 
though  for  the  moment  all  the  world  is  worthless 
in  comparison  with  it.  I  might  hear  the  sound, 
perhaps,  in  this  drowsy  hour  under  the  oak-tree — 
you  never  know. 

From  our  corner  of  the  lawn,  as  I  lay  in  the  shade, 
I  could  look  aslant  at  the  many-windowed  breadth 
of  the  house,  over  a  foreground  of  marigolds  and 
verbenas.  The  sun  was  slanting  too,  by  this  time ; 
it  no  longer  stared  full  in  the  face  of  the  house,  it 
was  creeping  towards  the  west,  throwing  the  angle 
of  the  dining-room  into  shadow  and  revealing  the 
depths  of  its  green  mantling,  blue-green  streamers 
and  plumes  of  jessamine  starred  with  white.    The 

123 


E ARLH AM 

wing  of  the  dining-room  flanked  the  deep  border 
that  stretched  before  the  house,  interrupted  only 
by  the  porch  of  the  central  door — a  loosely  crowded 
border  in  which  heUotrope,  moss-roses,  great  bushes 
of  geranium,  were  massed  to  the  window-sills  of  the 
ground-floor.  At  the  further  end  another  low  wing 
stood  forward ;  and  here  the  sun  was  now  beginning 
to  strike  the  ample  spread  of  an  apricot-tree  on  the 
wall,  a  tree  that  was  placed  to  receive  the  steady 
goodness  of  the  afternoon  blaze.  I  could  count  the 
apricots  that  were  mellowing  there  in  the  distance, 
for  they  were  all  tied  up  in  their  little  white  hoods 
of  muslin,  to  guard  them  from  the  wasps.  Rich 
and  deep  was  the  day,  gathering  its  power,  bending 
its  great  energy  to  ripen  the  teeming  garden.  And 
then,  I  dare  say,  across  the  dreamy  contentment 
of  the  hour,  there  might  suddenly  reach  me  the 
sound  of  the  words — the  words  that  have  been 
nothing  hitherto  but  the  telling  of  a  story,  the 
unregarded  instrument  which  a  story  has  used. 

A  handful  of  them  escape  from  the  rest,  darting 
up  like  living  creatures.  I  scarcely  consider  their 
sense ;  it  is  their  life,  their  wheeling  curve  and  cut 
through  the  air,  their  poise,  their  fall — it  is  their 
bird-free  movement  that  is  entrancing.  They  were 
simply  a  phrase  in  a  book — a  poetry-book,  as  it 
chanced;  but  they  soared  out  of  the  book  in  an 
instant  and  caught  me  after  them.  They  wheel  and 
sing,  and  I  have  no  attention  for  anything  else, 
not  even  for  the  story  or  the  poem  out  of  which 
they  have  shot.  Well,  I  forget  the  rest ;  it  matters 
little  what  it  was  all  about.  The  living  words,  in 
their  magic  of  freedom  and  beauty,  have  nothing 

124 


IN   THE   GARDEN 

to  do  with  the  interest  and  the  charm  of  a  story; 
they  are  as  a  flash  from  another  world,  pure  and 
absolute,  a  stroke  of  art.  And  what  were  they? 
I  shall  keep  them  to  myself,  for  in  fact  they  were 
poor  poetry.  But  they  were  words,  and  they  cast 
the  enchantment  of  words  into  the  mind  of  one 
listener  at  any  rate,  while  the  sun  rounded  the 
corner  of  the  house  and  blazed  upon  the  hooded 
apricots. 

7 

A  tall  figure  came  tip-toeing  with  elaborate  pre- 
cautions, with  warning  gestures,  towards  our  settle- 
ment under  the  oak-tree.  This  was  the  tallest  and 
mightiest  of  our  uncles,  the  soldier-uncle;  he 
advanced  with  signals  of  dismay,  beckoning  to  the 
elders  of  our  party  and  trumpeting  a  deep  stage- 
whisper  through  his  hands.  "  Callers!  "  He 
seemed  shocked  by  the  news  he  brought.  He  strode 
up  to  our  cousin,  who  was  sitting  near  at  hand,  and 
clutched  her  wildly.  "  Callers!  "  It  was  very 
dramatic,  as  though  some  blow  unforeseen  had 
suddenly  fallen  upon  a  peaceful  family,  shattering 
their  security.  A  carriage  of  callers  had  been 
sighted,  strangers  were  at  the  gate — what  was  to  be 
done  about  it?  Flight  was  the  word;  and  the 
garden,  so  much  of  it  as  could  be  seen  from  the 
house,  was  quickly  depopulated.  Whoever  had 
been  enjoying  the  deepening  shade,  on  our  side  of 
the  lawn,  melted  and  was  gone.  With  the  zest  of 
conspirators  we  retreated  stealthily  down  the  green 
alley  of  the  sulky- walk. 

The  sulkies  stood  at  the  far  end  of  it.    They  were 

125 


E ARLH AM 

a  pair  of  white  seats,  one  on  either  side  of  the  walk — 
covered  seats,  like  rounded  sentry-boxes,  with 
shallow  conical  roofs  to  them;  at  a  distance  they 
looked  like  great  white  barrels  with  peaked  hds. 
They  swung  round  upon  pivots,  facing  to  the  sun 
or  the  shade  as  you  might  choose.  Both  occupants 
would  presumably  wish  for  the  same  aspect;  and 
so,  if  you  think  it  out,  you  will  see  that  they  would 
never  face  towards  each  other — and  hence  the  name. 
The  sulkies  were  very  old;  they  had  stood  at  the 
end  of  that  green  walk  in  the  time  of  the  seven  Miss 
Gurneys,  and  a  hundred  years  later  they  turned 
stiffly  and  shakily  upon  their  pivots.  The  narrow 
bench  inside  the  round  barrel  made  a  comfortless 
perch,  and  nobody  sat  in  them  but  the  children, 
who  were  drawn  to  the  sulkies  by  their  unlikeliness, 
their  singularity.  I  should  naturally  pause  to  seat 
myself  in  one  of  them,  and  to  note  how  the  sides 
of  the  barrel  enclosed  me,  shutting  off  the  world 
except  in  one  quarter.  It  made  a  Httle  house,  a 
little  fortress ;  I  sat  there  for  ten  seconds  perhaps, 
just  long  enough  to  taste  the  sensation.  Then  I 
slid  off  the  bench,  and  followed  the  gravel  path 
which  crossed  this  end  of  the  green  alley. 

The  gravel  path  ran  round  the  whole  outer  circuit 
of  the  garden,  with  the  sunk  fence  and  the  park 
immediately  beyond  it.  But  it  was  a  very  eventful 
path,  changing  its  character  many  times  in  its 
course,  disappearing  from  view  behind  the  deep 
shrubberies,  re-emerging  on  the  confines  of  the 
open  lawns.  In  the  neighbourhood  of  the  sulkies 
it  was  secluded  and  bowery;  trees  over-arched  it, 
and  in  this  region  the  sunk  fence  became  a  tangle, 

126 


IN  THE  GARDEN 

a  loose  thicket  of  holly  and  oak.  The  gravel  itself 
was  greened  over  with  slippery  films  of  mossiness ; 
and  I  particularly  like  the  thought  of  a  remarkable 
tree,  I  think  an  ash,  which  I  come  upon  almost 
at  once.  It  grew  at  the  edge  of  the  path,  and  it 
had  a  twisted  old  trunk  that  sloped  and  lurched  and 
divided,  and  you  could  walk  up  it  as  by  a  flight 
of  steps.  I  have  spent  a  whole  afternoon  between 
the  sulkies  and  this  ash- trunk,  amassing  a  new 
collection  of  objects  that  invited  the  hand  and  the 
eye — ^storing  them  away  in  the  fortress  of  one  of  the 
white  seats,  transferring  them  to  the  cool  hchen 
in  the  steps  of  the  tree.  Surely  these  children  are 
clever  at  devising  their  own  amusements,  or  they 
are  easily  amused.  Some  of  our  elders,  strolling 
by,  might  glance  indulgently  at  our  occupation; 
it  seemed  to  consist  in  shovelhng  together  a  litter 
of  pebbles  and  mosses,  and  ramming  them  into  the 
chinks  of  the  tree.  Is  that  a  game  to  absorb  a  pair 
of  intelligent  children  and  keep  them  busy  as 
beavers  for  a  whole  afternoon?  All  I  can  say  is 
that  to  me  it  appeared  to  call  for  both  thought  and 
skill;  but  it  was  difficult  to  explain. 

I  prefer  just  now,  however,  to  push  ahead  and  to 
follow  the  path  in  its  circuit.  Presently  it  left  the 
rusthng  shadows  and  came  out  into  the  great  even 
light  of  the  big  lawn;  and  there,  away  in  the 
distance,  were  the  many  windows  of  the  house,  the 
long  red  roofs,  the  chimneys  that  were  beginning  to 
catch  a  deeper  gold  from  the  westering  sun — and 
behind  and  above  them  the  huge  quiet  domes  of 
lime  and  chestnut.  The  path  marches  forward 
in  a  straight  reach,  always  in  view  of  the  far-away 

127 


EARLH AM 

windows  across  the  lawn;  it  marches  along  the 
edge  of  the  dry  ditch,  now  broad  and  open,  where 
the  fence  of  the  park  is  concealed.  And  remark 
that  the  slope  of  the  ditch,  next  to  the  path,  has 
become  an  enormous  flower-bed,  tilted  to  the  south 
across  the  whole  breadth  of  the  lawn ;  a  flower-bed 
entirely  given  up  to  those  beautiful  old  anemones, 
purple  and  white  and  scarlet,  with  their  crimped 
ruffs  of  greenery  on  their  clean  stalks;  and  even 
in  this  late  summer  there  are  always  a  few  to  be 
seen,  gleaming  and  flaming  here  and  there  upon  the 
brown  earth  and  the  faded  leafage.  I  follow  the 
straight  path,  flooded  with  the  sense  of  the  lawn 
and  the  open  light  and  the  benevolent  gaze  of  the 
house  with  its  wide  arms  in  the  distance ;  I  follow 
the  path — and  once  more  it  passes  into  shadow, 
and  the  view  of  the  house  is  cut  off  by  a  thicket 
of  trees  and  bushes.  And  very  soon  comes  a  sharp 
turn ;  there  is  a  gate  into  the  park  at  the  corner, 
and  with  your  back  to  the  gate  you  look  down  the 
narrow  vista  of  a  walk,  densely  shaded,  screened  on 
either  hand.  It  is  Wilberforce's  Walk,  along  which 
I  looked  from  the  other  end  this  morning. 

Let  me  make  the  return  journey,  therefore,  with 
Wilberforce  and  Uncle  Joseph  John,  while  they  still 
wag  their  fine  old  heads  together  over  their  high 
designs.  But  to  tell  the  truth  I  did  not  give  them 
a  thought,  though  I  liked  the  notion  that  the  walk 
had  a  name,  a  title  for  its  clear  identity.  There  is 
great  virtue  in  a  name,  and  it  was  a  pity  that  the 
garden  on  the  whole  was  poor  in  this  matter.  The 
alleys  and  dells  and  enclosures  were  all  very  personal 
to  us,  very  distinct  in  their  tone  and  temper ;  and 

128 


IN  THE  GARDEN 

to  leave  them  nameless,  as  most  of  them  were  left, 
was  a  slight  from  which  they  suffered.  The  thicket 
of  the  oaks  and  the  honesty  and  the  wood-pigeons, 
for  example,  was  an  intimate  companion  whose 
engaging  moods  I  knew  by  heart;  but  his  want 
of  a  proper  name,  in  which  they  would  all  be 
summed  up,  made  it  impossible  to  allude  to  him 
familiarly,  to  circulate  him  in  talk,  to  call  to  him  in 
absence  with  an  easy  quick  nod  of  recognition. 
Our  fancy,  I  note  with  surprise,  did  not  soar  to  the 
creation  of  new  names;  but  new  names,  I  think, 
would  have  seemed  artificial,  unnatural.  I  felt 
the  difference  when  I  came  to  Wilberforce's  Walk ; 
there  was  somebody  one  could  mention  at  any  time, 
and  all  would  understand  the  allusion. 

Here  I  am,  then,  once  more  in  the  walled  garden 
of  Betsy's  seat,  the  box-edged  parterre  and  the 
frog-pond.  But  it  is  a  scene  completely  changed 
from  this  morning.  Where  there  was  winking 
stirring  sunshine,  where  there  was  shadow  cold  and 
crisp  from  the  touch  of  night,  there  is  now  a  grey 
softness  in  the  shadow,  and  the  sunshine  is  a  flood 
of  gold  as  still  as  glass.  Especially  under  the  wall 
where  the  clematis  foams  in  its  white  cascade  there 
is  shadow  that  has  already  the  purity  of  twilight, 
though  there  are  hours  and  hours  of  full  daytime 
still  to  come.  I  always  like  the  nasturtiums  that 
riot  along  the  foot  of  this  wall,  bright  yellow,  bright 
red;  very  few  plants  of  the  earth  are  as  clean  in 
negligent  ease  as  a  yellow  nasturtium.  And  then 
there  are  the  great  stalks  of  the  giant  balsam,  hold- 
ing out  the  ripe  pods,  full  charged,  that  explode 
with  a  snap  and  a  splutter  as  I  touch  them  off.    But 

129  K 


E ARLH AM 

it  is  a  doorway  in  the' wall,  at  the  further  end  of  it, 
that  I  aim  for  at  present — the  door  of  the  quince- 
tree  close,  where  I  have  not  penetrated  yet.  That 
would  be  the  right  retreat  for  whatever  may  be  left 
of  the  afternoon. 

It  was  a  narrow  strip,  or  rather  a  long  and 
tapering  angle,  between  two  high  walls.  At  the 
broader  end  there  was  an  approach  from  the 
kitchen ;  it  must  have  been  the  herb-garden  in  old 
days.  The  quince- tree  was  very  ancient  and  fruit- 
ful, but  I  am  not  deceived  by  the  luminous  beauty 
of  the  quinces;  they  look  so  mild,  so  mellow,  and 
in  point  of  fact  you  might  as  well  try  to  gnaw  a 
stone  off  the  road.  As  for  the  kitchen-herbs,  I 
think  there  was  still  some  growth  of  sage  and  mint 
and  such  things  in  this  quarter ;  but  the  place  had 
been  dedicated,  long  before  our  time,  to  the  children 
of  the  house,  for  their  own  private  planting  and 
gardening.  Their  traces  had  vanished,  the  secluded 
corner  was  untended;  yet  the  later  children  felt 
they  possessed  a  lien,  a  claim  that  might  be  asserted, 
perhaps,  on  some  spare  afternoon  when  it  seemed 
convenient  to  plant  and  dig,  and  particularly  to 
water.  These  operations  are  interesting,  and  best 
of  all  is  the  care  of  reviving  the  new  plants,  limp 
and  gasping  from  the  trowel,  with  copious  showers ; 
the  process  is  apt  to  end  in  a  tropical  deluge,  the 
garden  lapses  into  a  slobbering  mud-pie.  And 
indeed  I  know  very  well  where  the  trowel  and 
watering-pot  are  to  be  found.  There  is  a  tool-house 
not  far  ofi,  full  of  seductive  implements ;  seedlings 
of  marigold  and  stock  are  soon  lifted  from  a  neigh- 
bouring border;  and  I  dare  say  there  is  plenty  of 

130 


IN  THE  GARDEN 

time  to  reach  the  period  of  the  mud-pie  before  we 
are  called  indoors.  Clean  crumbhng  earth  is  good, 
but  juicy  and  all-pervading  slime  is  better;  it 
spreads  with  wonderful  rapidity,  from  the  skirts  of 
the  clothing  to  the  very  roots  of  the  hair.  And 
when  somebody  arrives  to  hale  us  indoors  at  tea- 
time,  somebody  throws  up  her  hands  with  shrill 
cries  at  our  bedabblement. 

8 
That  scare  of  callers  had  long  since  blown  over ; 
but  when  we  emerged  again  on  to  the  lawn  after 
tea,  cleaned  and  refreshed,  it  was  likely  that  we 
might  find  the  family  party  augmented.  In  these 
summer  weeks  the  arms  of  Earlham  were  very  wide, 
and  there  was  much  coming  and  going  of  its  large 
and  faithful  flock.  Moreover  for  many  miles  around 
the  land  was  colonized  by  the  children  and  grand- 
children, the  cousins  in  every  degree,  of  the  sons  of 
Earlham;  in  many  and  many  villages  of  the 
country-side  its  kinsmen  dwelt  and  increased.  A 
stranger  would  be  bewildered  by  the  intricate 
system  of  relationship  that  spread  over  half  the 
county  and  knitted  it  with  Earlham;  cross-ties, 
intermarriages,  confused  the  web  beyond  unravel- 
ling by  any  but  those  who  were  born  to  it.  I  could 
almost  say  that  if,  starting  from  Earlham,  you 
should  tack  to  and  fro  in  a  certain  line  from  village 
to  village,  you  might  travel  for  a  week  and  never 
pass  a  square  flint  church-tower  that  does  not 
shadow  some  kindred  settlement,  some  shoot  from 
the  stock  of  the  old  Norwich  Friends.  Norfolk  is 
a  land  of  "  haUs  "  ;  wherever  you  go  you  find  that 

131 


E ARLH AM 

the  main  house  of  the  village,  modest  or  grandiose, 
is  still  as  it  was  in  the  beginning,  the  hall;  and 
sometimes  the  "  old  hall,"  a  rambling  group  of 
gables  and  chimneys  down  by  the  river,  has  sur- 
vived when  the  "  new  hall,"  in  the  modern  taste, 
has  arisen  hard  by  on  higher  ground.  I  could  not 
count  all  the  Norfolk  halls,  new  and  old,  that  were 
of  the  kith  of  Earlham;  but  their  village-names 
were  very  familiar  to  us,  and  they  were  united  by  a 
notable  bond.  The  tie  of  blood  was  greatly  re- 
spected, always  in  that  English  manner  that  mixes 
so  much  independence  with  its  fealty.  We  were 
clansmen — that  we  distinctly  felt;  but  the  pieties 
and  loyalties  of  an  English  family  are  mercifully 
untheoretic,  and  I  suppose  they  were  never  yet 
allowed  to  become  an  inconvenience.  Of  a  tough 
old  "  family-feeling,"  however,  fast  and  loose, 
scrupulous  and  casual,  let  those  speak  who  may 
view  it  from  without — sometimes  with  impatience, 
I  quite  believe. 

"  Dear  So-and-so  is  very  faithful,"  our  grand- 
mother would  say,  and  there  was  much  meaning  in 
the  word.  Dear  So-and-so,  perhaps,  may  have 
driven  over  this  afternoon,  bringing  a  gift  of  fidelity 
to  the  associations  of  Earlham  which  grandmother 
appreciated  keenly,  not  less  so  than  the  tribute  of 
personal  affection  to  herself.  When  we  reached  the 
lawn  after  our  nursery- tea,  we  should  find  the 
party  of  our  elders  gathered  once  more  in  the 
spreading  shade ;  and  I  see  that  we  approach  rather 
shyly  and  doubtfully,  on  discovering  the  presence 
of  a  new-comer.  What  a  curse  that  shyness  can  be, 
that  well-known  effluence  that  suddenly  descends 

132 


IN  THE  GARDEN 

to  tie  the  tongue  and  to  cramp  every  joint  of  the 
body.  Yet  it  does  not  stifle  a  movement  of  pleased 
curiosity,  for  otherwise  I  should  turn  at  the  garden- 
door  and  escape  in  another  direction.  That  would 
be  simple;  but  if  there  is  company  on  the  lawn  I 
definitely  wish  to  be  there,  I  would  not  miss  the 
entertainment  of  a  new  face,  a  new  voice,  an  un- 
familiar representation  of  some  sort.  And  accord- 
ingly the  approach  must  be  faced — ^jauntily,  shall 
it  be,  with  an  assumption  of  ease,  or  very  cautiously, 
with  as  much  self-effacement  as  possible?  Either 
way  I  shall  have  chosen  wrong,  you  will  note; 
the  demon  of  awkwardness  sees  to  that.  Jauntiness 
makes  one  flush  to  remember  afterwards,  self- 
effacement  is  even  more  conspicuous.  But  once 
among  the  party,  when  I  hang  upon  the  chair  of  a 
trusted  ally,  then  I  must  say  that  I  find  the  show 
rewarding.  Dear  So-and-so  would  hardly  suspect 
what  devouring  eyes,  what  attentive  ears,  are 
following  the  details  of  her  little  performance. 

Do  not  imagine,  however,  that  it  is  a  pair  of  ill- 
mannered  children,  or  precociously  critical,  who 
have  joined  the  circle  on  the  lawn.  Our  kindly 
relatives,  from  those  whom  we  knew  well  to  the 
dim  outlying  ranges  of  the  cousinhood  where  dis- 
crimination failed — they  were  watched,  I  will  say, 
with  discretion  and  in  all  simplicity.  The  faithful 
So-and-so  was  not  one,  but  many,  and  each  received 
the  meed  of  our  tongue-tied  attention.  The  talk 
might  be  supposed  to  have  no  interest  for  the  chil- 
dren ;  but  nothing  came  amiss  to  them,  I  think, 
and  I  have  listened  with  satisfaction,  often  enough, 
while  two  of  our  elders  made  talk  with  each  other 

133 


EARLHAM 

that  had  certainly  no  interest  for  themselves.  And 
then,  too,  an  arrival  of  some  of  the  cousinhood 
brought  an  infusion  into  the  air  of  intercourse  that 
I  recognized,  though  I  could  not  have  said  what 
it  was.  A  waft  of  life  as  it  is  lived  in  a  country 
province,  something  that  set  the  imagination 
vaguely  circulating  among  bowery  lanes  and  blue 
turnip-fields  and  sluggish  waters,  where  small 
shabby  villages  straggle  about  the  ornate  grey 
churches  of  more  spacious  days — something  from 
the  very  heart  of  that  East  Anglian  ancientry  came 
poetically  stirring  and  breathing  into  our  midst. 
These  children  were  used  to  another  landscape,  one 
that  spoke  poetically  too,  but  in  quite  a  different 
idiom.  At  Earlham  a  world  was  revealed  that  lay 
apart,  sufficient  to  itself,  following  its  own  ways  and 
talking  its  own  language — or  no,  not  revealed 
indeed,  but  hinted  at,  implied  and  assumed,  in  the 
friendly  incursions  of  the  neighbourhood.  I  remem- 
ber the  obscure  impression  of  distances  that  opened, 
with  momentary  glimpses  of  a  life  where  the  round 
of  the  year  revolved  and  revolved  in  an  unknown 
system,  out  there  among  the  beautiful  old  village- 
names  of  the  east  country. 

So  Earlham  was  a  liberal  education,  it  is  evident, 
at  all  hours  of  the  day ;  here  am  I  receiving  after 
tea,  most  unconsciously,  a  lesson  in  the  moral  and 
social  geography  of  our  packed  little  island.  And 
I  don't  know  that  anything  counted  for  more  in  it 
than  the  appealing  romance  of  the  Norfolk  names, 
which  stole  into  the  mind  and  coiled  about  the  fancy 
with  their  clear  and  liquid  syllables.  Words  like 
Hindringham,  Walsingham,  Burhngham,  fell  with  a 

134 


IN  THE  GARDEN 

strain  of  rippling  melody  that  echoed  out  of  serene 
sky-spaces,  shining  reedy  meres — if  only  it  were 
possible  to  waylay  these  haunting  intimations  in 
plain  prose.  I  never  forget  the  little  shock  of 
delight  with  which  I  once  heard  our  grandmother 
casually  mention  a  name  in  which  this  clean 
euphony  is  roused  to  positive  excitement.  Here  it 
is — Wramplingham ! — and  to  say  all,  I  think  it  a 
name  that  should  be  set  to  music  by  Schubert. 
And  then  in  another  vein  there  is  the  erratic  host  of 
names  that  in  speech  have  slipped  the  anchorage  of 
their  spelling — Wymondham,  Happisburgh,  Cos- 
tessey,  Poringland — names  that  we  utter  with  a 
bland  indifference  (full  of  distinction,  I  felt)  to  the 
laws  of  the  alphabet.  If  you  pronounce  them  as 
they  are  spelt,  I  regard  you  with  a  glance  of  superi- 
ority, infinitely  provoking.  Merely  to  say  "  Haze- 
borough,"  to  say  "  Cossey  " — let  these  suffice — 
gives  me  a  fine  sense  of  community  with  an  ancient 
province,  the  kingdom  of  the  easterlings. 

9 

Or  it  may  be  that  the  accession  to  our  party  was 

of  another  sort  entirely.  Some  time  ago  I  dropped 
a  word  of  the  missionary  to  whom  our  grandfather 
had  lent  his  disused  rectory-house  at  Colney — a 
charming  old  house,  with  a  magnolia  among  its 
sunny  windows.  It  was  constantly  lent  to  some 
missionary  or  other,  for  his  hoUday-weeks  in 
England;  he  brought  his  wife  there,  and  his  little 
daughter  from  school,  and  they  dropped  into  an 
interlude  of  parochial  home-life  that  was  all  ready 
made  for  them,  you  may  say,  by  our  grandparents' 

135 


E  A  R  L  H  A  M 

care.  The  good  man,  for  a  few  weeks  he  could  think 
he  was  a  village-parson  at  home,  with  his  roses  and 
his  fat  old  pony  and  his  little  babbling  daughter 
whom  he  had  not  seen  for  so  long.  He  had  to  leave 
her  behind  at  school,  when  he  and  his  wife  returned 
to  Uganda;  but  meanwhile  they  could  imagine 
that  they  were  a  home-keeping  family  in  a  parson- 
age of  their  own,  except  that  at  Colney  there  was 
no  responsibility,  no  need  to  be  busier  about  the 
parish  than  they  chose.  But  to  be  sure  they  were 
not  idle ;  the  good  man  delighted  to  join  our  grand- 
father in  his  pastoral  round,  to  lend  a  hand  in  the 
service  on  Sunday,  and  I  dare  say  his  wife  might 
volunteer  at  the  harmonium,  if  the  regular  per- 
former was  on  his  holiday.  They  came  from 
Uganda,  from  India,  from  China ;  they  came  again, 
and  not  a  few  of  them  grew  to  be  familiar  friends  of 
Earlham  in  course  of  years.  It  is  quite  likely  that 
the  missionary  of  the  moment  and  his  wife  may  have 
dropped  in  to  tea  this  evening. 

Our  grandfather  was  profoundly  learned  in  the 
lore  of  the  mission-field ;  nothing  was  deeper  in  his 
mind  than  the  thought  of  the  many  faithful  sickles 
that  were  putting  in  at  all  times  to  that  harvest. 
The  good  reaper  who  was  among  us  this  evening 
had  faced  I  know  not  what — ^hardship,  disappoint- 
ment, danger  in  the  heart  of  darkness ;  but  he  did 
not  dwell  on  these,  he  told  us  of  his  encouragement 
and  reward,  the  friends  and  brothers  whom  he  had 
found  among  the  uttermost  tribes.  I  have  a  vision 
of  Sunday  morning  in  Uganda,  the  log-hut  of  a 
church,  the  rows  of  strange  dark  faces  fervently 
upturned,  our  friend  in  his  white  English  surplice, 

136 


IN   THE  GARDEN 

his  wife  at  her  harmonium.  It  was  she  who  accom- 
panied the  rolling  hymns ;  I  know  it,  because  it  so 
happened  that  the  children  had  visited  her  at 
Colney  rectory  one  morning,  and  had  seen  the  very 
instrument  that  was  to  travel  with  her  into  the 
wild.  A  little  portable  thing,  scarcely  more  than 
a  pair  of  bellows  and  a  key-board — she  showed  it  to 
us  with  pride.  Her  husband  had  gone  up  to  London 
the  day  before,  and  her  last  direction  to  him  had 
been  to  bring  her  some  "  violet-powder  "  that  she 
needed;  and  he  had  returned  with  an  odd-shaped 
case,  about  twice  the  size  of  a  coal-scuttle.  "  Your 
violet-powder,  my  dear,"  said  he;  and  behold  it 
was  a  new  harmonium,  just  what  they  wanted  in 
Uganda,  which  he  had  brought  her  as  a  surprise. 
Is  that  a  story  worth  telling,  after  thirty  years  and 
more?  It  seemed  to  me  an  excellent  one;  and 
indeed  it  seems  so  still,  at  this  moment  when  it 
re-emerges  after  very  many  years  of  oblivion. 

I  think  it  a  good  story,  because  it  strikes  a  par- 
ticular note  so  firmly.  Draw  from  it  my  sense  of  the 
unvarying  humour  of  the  English  parsonage,  the 
happy  faculty  of  bright  simphcity  and  domesticity 
that  will  never  have  been  blighted,  I  take  it,  by  all 
the  hosts  of  heathendom  upon  the  globe.  Our 
friends  had  seen  a  great  deal  of  a  barbaric  and  I 
dare  say  a  formidable  world;  they  had  gone  out 
into  the  wilderness,  they  had  striven  with  the  dark 
unknown,  they  had  raised  their  prayer  and  hymn 
under  alien  skies ;  and  they  came  back  to  the  rose- 
hung  porch  and  the  buttercup  meadow,  the  trim 
lawn  and  the  thrush  in  the  lilac,  with  exactly  the 
gush  of  cheerful  piety,  the  native  wood-note  of 

^Z7 


E ARLHAM 

clerical  mirth,  which  they  had  carried  with  them 
upon  their  far  adventure.  That  jest  of  the  violet- 
powder  and  the  harmonium  has  been  heard,  do  not 
doubt  it,  on  coral  strands  and  in  equatorial  jungles. 
Immutable,  invincible,  the  genius  of  the  sunny 
parsonage  makes  its  way  to  the  ends  of  all  the 
earth.  Wherever  it  touches,  there  it  brings  the 
echoes  and  the  savours  of  a  Sunday  evening  at 
home;  shut  your  eyes  when  you  hear  the  tinkle 
of  the  church-bell  in  Borrioboola,  and  your  feet 
will  carry  you  along  the  winding  hedge-row,  over 
the  stile  and  across  the  village-green.  And  now 
that  our  friends  are  at  Earlham  again,  seated  about 
the  tea-table  on  the  lawn,  I  look  in  vain  for  a  trace 
of  the  Borrioboolan  climate  upon  the  homely  bloom 
of  their  imagination.  The  honest  lady,  shining 
with  motherly  kindness,  tells  the  children  a  story 
of  black  babies,  green  parrots,  droll  monkeys — I 
forget  how  it  ran;  her  husband,  lean  and  strong, 
speaks  enthusiastically  of  his  coloured  flock,  point- 
ing his  account  with  anecdotes  of  their  zeal  and 
faith.  But  it  is  only  their  matter  that  is  exotic; 
their  spirit  is  domestic  as  the  buttercups  of  the 
glebe. 

Beyond  these  friendly  folk,  therefore,  I  had  no 
impression  of  a  new  world  disclosed.  I  felt  I  had 
nothing  to  learn  about  Sunday  evening  and  the 
church-bell  and  the  singing  of  hymns;  there  were 
no  strange  horizons  to  open  in  that  quarter.  And 
somehow  the  tale  of  the  babies  and  the  monkeys 
(if  I  have  the  theme  aright — it  is  all  a  blur)  failed 
to  strike  home;  the  tale  of  the  violet-powder  and 
the  odd  packing-case  was  apparently  more  sug- 

138 


IN  THE  GARDEN 

gestive.  But  the  fact  of  the  missionary  and  his 
wife,  their  presence,  their  recurrence,  is  distinctly 
to  be  recognized  in  the  memory  of  Earlham,  and 
I  could  not  wander  there  for  long  without  coming 
upon  their  trace.  I  see  our  grandmother  constantly 
devising  some  plan  to  help  or  solace  or  nourish 
them ;  I  hear  our  grandfather  quietly  and  proudly 
enumerating  the  details  of  their  success  in  the  field ; 
the  "  Church  Missionary  Society,"  its  fame,  its 
history,  its  literature,  is  never  very  far  from  the 
scene.  And  I  remember  an  incident  that  much 
impressed  me  with  the  depth  and  seriousness  of  our 
grandparents'  interest  in  these  questions.  It  was  in 
Earlham  church,  one  evening,  and  the  twilit  service 
was  just  over,  and  I  was  following  our  grandmother 
down  the  aisle;  it  was  a  day  when  there  was  a 
collection  for  foreign  missions,  and  somebody  stood 
by  the  door  with  a  plate.  Grandmother  held  her 
contribution  in  readiness,  and  I  saw  it.  There 
were  several  of  them  in  her  hand,  several  indeed, 
and  as  we  approached  the  door  she  suddenly  passed 
one  of  them  to  me,  that  I  might  make  an  offering 
of  my  own.  For  a  moment  it  lay  in  my  hand,  the 
first  I  ever  felt  there — a  golden  sovereign.  I 
dropped  it  into  the  plate,  awed  by  the  greatness  of 
the  issue,  the  outpouring  of  treasure,  the  prodigal 
magnificence  of  the  transaction. 

10 

At  this  hour  the  party  will  tend  to  scatter  freely 
over  the  lawn,  for  now  the  sun  is  well  in  the  west, 
and  almost  the  whole  of  the  great  plain  is  grey  and 
pale  in  shadow ;  only  here  and  there,  through  a  rift 

139 


E ARLHAM 

in  the  trees,  a  rich  bar  of  gold  still  kindles  the  grass. 
To  the  furthest  verge  of  the  clear  expanse  I  can 
stray  reflectively,  and  never  take  a  step  without 
waking  some  keen  small  memory,  some  tiny  glimpse 
of  life  that  opens  like  a  picture  in  its  place.  In 
many  of  them  there  is  nothing,  one  would  say,  to 
make  a  picture  at  all,  nothing  to  distinguish  the 
particular  moment  from  a  thousand  others;  but 
when  a  chance  attitude,  a  group,  a  lightly  thrown 
word  or  two,  has  endured  indestructibly  for  so  long, 
I  cannot  help  prizing  it  and  lingering  over  it  as 
though  it  were  a  marvel.  Two  young  men  in  white 
flannels  who  are  bracing  and  tightening  a  lawn- 
tennis  net;  a  middle-aged  lady  who  advances 
graciously,  arching  her  long  neck,  her  hands  folded 
upon  her  stomacher ;  a  languid  gentleman,  strolling 
and  smiling,  who  has  come  with  a  party  of  neigh- 
bours and  whom  I  somehow  understand  to  be  a  bad 
character :  such  are  my  pictures,  there  are  scores  of 
them  about  as  remarkable  as  these.  And  by  virtue, 
I  suppose,  of  that  troublesome  duality  of  which  I 
have  spoken,  in  some  of  them  I  see  myself,  a  figure 
among  the  rest,  taking  the  light  like  an  object; 
as  here  by  a  border  of  flowers,  close  to  the  dining- 
room  windows,  where  I  shuffle  and  blink  in  the 
sun  beside  our  cousin — and  I  look  on  at  that  striking 
episode  from  an  independent  point  of  view,  per- 
fectly detached. 

Well,  I  cannot  pass  over  the  scene  that  springs 
into  existence  by  a  certain  bench  on  the  lawn,  a 
white  seat  protected  by  a  folding  lid — thrown  back 
at  this  moment,  for  the  seat  is  occupied  by  two 
figures  in  converse.     One  of  them  is  our  grand- 

140 


IN  THE   GARDEN 

mother,  the  other  a  rather  unyieldmg  and  estranging 
old  lady,  an  aged  relative  upon  a  visit  to  Earlham. 
In  point  of  fact  she  was  indulgently  inclined  to  the 
children;  and  the  dear  solicitude  of  our  cousin, 
who  happens  to  be  in  charge  of  us,  is  exercised  to 
make  us  behave  to  her  becomingly.  Aunt  Ellen 
should  have  no  reason  to  think  us  unpleasing, 
unmannerly;  it  was  a  task  that  Mary  had  set 
herself,  she  intended  to  see  it  through.  But  what  a 
task — you  would  understand  her  difficulty  if  you 
saw  the  hunched  shoulders,  the  obstinate  backs  of 
the  children,  whenever  she  tries  to  steer  them 
surreptitiously  in  the  direction  of  Aunt  Ellen ;  for 
indeed  the  old  lady  was  forbidding  in  her  style,  and 
I  cannot  pretend  that  there  was  a  high  polish  upon 
that  of  the  children.  Mary,  however,  was  ingenious ; 
she  laid  her  plan,  she  invented  a  game ;  and  as  we 
skirmished  round  her  on  the  lawn,  at  a  good  dis- 
tance from  Aunt  Ellen,  she  swiftly  delivered  her 
stroke.  "  Run,  run  to  that  seat  over  there!  " — 
it  was  the  climax  of  the  game,  and  the  game  would 
be  won  by  the  first  to  reach  the  seat.  It  was 
decidedly  thin ;  but  Mary  was  so  quick  and  brilliant 
that  she  could  always  convince  you,  always  impose 
a  dramatic  artifice  of  that  kind.  Aunt  Ellen  had 
the  moving  spectacle  of  a  pair  of  children  who 
rushed  across  the  lawn  to  her  with  cries  and  bleats, 
overpowered  (she  thought)  by  the  desire  to  greet 
and  welcome  her.    We  had  a  great  success. 

So  the  next  day  she  travelled  off  to  Norwich, 
announcing  to  Mary  her  intention  to  buy  us  each 
a  little  present.  And  we  were  not  to  be  trusted; 
Mary  knew  these  children,  and  knew  that  it  was  not 

141 


E  A  R  L  H  A  M 

safe  to  leave  their  pretty  start  of  delight  and  grati- 
tude to  chance,  when  Aunt  Ellen  should  produce  her 
fairing.  It  would  be  a  sad  business  if  the  poor  old 
lady's  surprise-packet  fell  flat  after  all;  and  you 
could  not  be  sure,  the  children  were  capable  of  being 
very  blunt.  But  if  their  curiosity  was  delicately 
touched  and  titillated,  if  the  crisis  was  lightly 
prepared  in  advance,  if  the  occasion  for  a  pretty 
piece  of  manners  could  be  a  little  foreseen — then 
Mary  counted  confidently  on  all  being  well.  Such 
arts  she  had,  such  beautiful  thought  she  was 
capable  of  taking.  Is  a  child  aware  of  the  fine 
diplomacy  of  a  loving  elder,  bent  on  securing  a 
creditable  show  from  her  charge  ?  I  don't  believe 
it  escaped  us — but  Mary  could  not  fail.  The 
children  came  down  after  tea  with  a  look  of  inno- 
cence, an  air  of  decorous  affability  that  was  indeed 
for  her  a  triumph.  I  forget  all  about  it,  save  for  a 
single  glimpse  as  clear  as  a  miniature — a  glimpse 
of  a  very  small  girl  with  short  hair,  who  steals 
quietly  into  the  circle  of  our  elders,  takes  a  seat 
close  to  Aunt  Ellen,  disposes  herself  in  readiness  for 
the  surprise,  with  a  mouse-like  demeanour  carefully 
designed  to  show  how  little  she  suspects  what  is 
to  come.  Disengaged,  elaborately  nonchalant,  she 
sits  there  as  good  as  gold,  waiting  to  be  surprised 
— a  most  artistic  performance;  and  I  hope  and 
beheve  that  Aunt  Ellen  was  gratified. 

II 
She  was  not  really  an  aunt,  she  was  a  remoter 
connexion,  and  no  habitual  figure  at  Earlham.     I 
soon  forget  her  when  I  discover  members  of  the 

142 


IN  THE  GARDEN 

true  flock,  the  community  of  Earlham,  gathered  in 
the  evening  light  upon  the  lawn.  Face  after  face 
appears  in  memory,  and  I  should  like  to  pause 
before  each.  And  particularly  of  our  uncles  there 
is  more  to  be  said,  for  certain  of  them  I  have  not 
yet  encountered.  I  have  seen  the  younger  of  them, 
the  richly  humoured  young  Olympians  whom  I 
admired  and  feared;  but  there  were  others,  sons 
of  our  grandmother's  first  marriage,  who  in  our 
time  had  their  homes  and  households  elsewhere,  and 
who  seemed  to  us  venerable  indeed.  And  of  these 
not  one  was  ever  to  grow  old;  I  now  know  that 
they  died  in  the  full  middle  of  life,  in  what  has 
become  their  youth — ^it  is  many  years  ago.  They 
lived  away  from  Earlham,  but  not  very  far  away ; 
they  often  came  and  went,  and  nothing  is  more 
natural  than  to  see  one  or  other  of  them  strolling 
across  the  lawn  in  the  cool  of  the  evening. 

A  small  compact  figure,  a  clean-shaven  face,  grey 
hair  very  smoothly  brushed  back  from  an  open 
forehead — this  is  one  of  them,  strolling  with  a  slow 
and  deliberate  swing,  his  hands  clasped  behind 
his  back.  He  came  from  near  by,  from  Norwich, 
where  he  was  rector  of  a  city  parish;  and  I  wish 
I  could  make  the  full  portrait  of  a  very  original 
man,  gravely  and  humorously  singular.  He  had 
a  great  air — a  child  was  quickly  conscious  of  it, 
as  he  stopped  in  his  walk  and  looked  down  at  one 
with  composure,  detached  and  aloof.  His  dignity 
seemed  to  be  that  of  a  very  stately  old  man,  and 
yet  it  was  also  the  dignity  of  a  humorous  and  ironic 
schoolboy,  enjoying  an  impersonation  of  dry  full- 
flavoured  style.    A  large  eye  rested  on  one  without 

143 


E ARLH AM 

expression,  there  was  a  rather  awful  silence ;  I 
might  begin  to  think  him  severe  and  formidable. 
Blandness  was  in  his  manner,  however ;  there  was 
even  a  touch  of  something  suave  and  priestly  in  his 
appearance,  in  the  smoothness  of  his  grey  hair, 
accurately  parted  and  flattened;  and  then  again, 
immediately  contradicting  this  impression,  his 
boyishness  became  the  key,  the  clue  to  everything 
about  him.  Of  course  I  interpret  my  vision  as  I 
did  not  dream  of  interpreting  it  then,  long  ago ;  but 
the  focus  of  a  child's  eye  is  so  precise  that  the 
image  retained  will  always  give  out  more  and  more, 
as  one  brings  to  it  a  fuller  comprehension.  And  I 
now  see  the  humour  of  an  odd  quaint  boy,  solemnity 
and  irony  mixed,  lying  close  behind  the  slow  look 
that  was  bent  on  us  by  this  uncle.  I  have  been 
faintly  reminded  of  him,  sometimes,  when  I  have 
seen  an  undergraduate  acting  an  old  man's  part 
in  a  play,  with  a  mellow  gravity  only  betrayed  by 
the  young  gust  and  relish  with  which  it  is  worn. 

I  cannot  pretend,  unfortunately,  to  describe  what 
he  was ;  he  was  like  nobody  else,  and  the  range  of 
his  wayward  unconventional  mind  lay  far  beyond 
the  ken  of  a  child.  But  at  one  point  we  could 
catch  a  hint  of  it,  perhaps;  and  I  find  something 
so  expressive  in  this  single  intimation  that  I  cannot 
forbear  to  follow  it  for  a  moment.  I  have  said 
already  how  the  repute  of  a  "  ritualist "  was 
regarded  at  Earlham — how  the  name  was  even 
capable  of  provoking  a  really  sharp  word  from  our 
grandfather,  most  benign  of  men.  To  decorate 
one's  devotions,  to  clothe  them  in  symbolic  splen- 
dours, seemed  to  become  an  act  that  belonged  to  a 

144 


IN  THE  GARDEN 

strange  inhuman  world,  infinitely  remote  from  the 
circle  of  an  honest  home.  "  Incense  " — and  "  vest- 
ments " — and  "  vain  repetitions  " — to  this  day  I 
hear  a  certain  wild  unsettling  strangeness  in  the 
words ;  I  see  beyond  them  a  race  of  alien  folk,  from 
whom  we  at  Earlham  are  safely  and  sharply 
divided.  And  with  all  this,  the  smoothly  brushed, 
solemn-eyed  uncle,  now  pacing  to  and  fro  upon  the 
lawn  with  our  grandfather,  discussing  (I  think)  the 
cricketing  news — was  one  of  them,  and  even 
excessively  and  luxuriantly  one  of  them;  he  was 
indeed.  There  was  a  flight  in  his  imagination  which 
carried  him  away  and  away,  I  know  not  where, 
much  beyond  the  conventional  symbols  and  orna- 
ments of  the  "  high  church  " — carried  him  into  a 
region  where  his  deep  originaHty  expressed  itself 
in  forms  untrammelled.  He  was  himself  alone,  he 
could  be  no  one  else ;  and  the  fervour  of  his  worship 
broke  out  and  blossomed  as  it  Usted,  And  I  dwell 
upon  the  memory,  ghostly  in  the  past  as  it  may 
seem,  because  it  gives  me  such  a  perfect  illustration 
of  the  tone  and  ring  of  that  old  life  at  Earlham. 

For  a  theory  at  Earlham,  however  implicitly 
accepted,  never  had  the  faintest  chance  from  the 
moment  it  crossed  the  instinct  of  heavenly  charity. 
I  have  seen  this  already,  and  I  see  it  again,  more 
clearly  than  ever,  remembering  how  easily  a  differ- 
ence, wide  as  the  horizon,  disappeared  when  affec- 
tion willed  it  out  of  the  way.  Was  it  hard  for  a 
good  "  evangelical "  at  Earlham  to  understand 
how  anybody  could  truly  and  reverently  commune 
with  the  great  unseen,  save  with  a  mind  entirely 
blank  and  blind  to  the  seduction  of  sense  ? — and  was 

145  L 


E ARLHAM 

it  hard  to  believe  that  holy  and  humble  men  of 
heart  could  set  a  value  upon  forms  and  shows  that 
appeared  so  patently  vain?  It  was  very  hard, 
sometimes  it  seemed  impossible;  and  then  the 
difficulty  had  vanished,  had  utterly  ceased  to  be, 
because  a  heart  of  perfect  love  had  suddenly  passed 
beyond  it.  I  wish  I  could  say  how  keen  and  touch- 
ing is  the  charm  of  a  picture  that  I  have  in  mind — 
deeply  appealing  to  any  one  who  knew  our  grand- 
mother and  the  traditions  in  which  she  walked. 
It  is  a  picture  of  her  at  prayer  and  worship  in  her 
son's  church — among  swinging  censers  and  tinkling 
bells  and  processional  candles,  I  suppose — and  she 
herself  serenely  transcending  her  mere  ideas  and 
persuasions,  lifted  away  from  the  world  of  the 
material  into  spaces  where  it  no  more  has  any 
meaning,  into  the  infinite  of  her  love  and  faith. 
She  and  her  son  were  there  together,  and  that  was 
enough. 

It  is  an  impression  that  is  scarcely  communicable, 
perhaps,  though  I  try  to  suggest  it.  But  the  sight 
of  our  grandfather  and  this  uncle  on  the  evening 
lawn,  strolling  and  discoursing  together,  is  more 
readily  seized.  It  is  the  county  cricket  that  they 
discuss,  sinking  enormous  differences  of  tempera- 
ment beneath  their  mutual  respect  and  trust.  And 
still  there  is  the  quaint  suspicion  of  something  so 
very  youthful  and  fresh  in  the  step-son,  masked  by 
his  grave  composure,  something  that  blurts  out 
unexpectedly  at  moments  in  his  talk.  He  uttered 
his  phrase  with  deliberate  emphasis;  the  forcible 
word  seemed  to  be  held  back  by  the  slightest  of 
stammers,  and  then  to  be  rapped  out  with  decision. 

146 


IN  THE  GARDEN 

There  was  a  feminine  group,  I  remember,  chattering 
freely  in  the  offing,  with  an  outbreak  of  light 
shrieks  and  exclamations  round  a  baby's  perambu- 
lator, may  be;  I  remember  it  by  reason  of  this 
uncle's  expression,  as  he  was  momentarily  caught 
in  the  shrill  tornado  and  detached  himself  resolutely, 
turning  away  to  quieter  companionship.  "  Enough 
of  that  clackl  " — I  hear  the  word  fall  with  great 
distinctness;  "enough  of  all  that — clackl"  It 
seems  to  me  that  only  a  schoolboy  could  throw  quite 
such  an  old  and  seasoned  scorn  of  feminine  trifles 
into  the  intonation  of  a  word. 

There  was  an  elder  brother,  but  he  was  already 
gone ;  he  died  in  the  midst  of  a  full  life,  and  for  the 
child  at  Earlham  there  remained  only  the  far-away 
vision  of  a  moment — a  vision  of  a  kind  bearded 
face,  dimmed  with  blindness  (his  sight  had  failed), 
a  quiet  presence  that  appeared  and  passed  with  a 
friendly  motion.  And  there  was  a  younger  brother, 
who  also  was  soon  to  vanish,  but  of  whom  my  » 
memory  is  plentiful — a  younger  brother  who  seemed 
to  be  always  escaping,  hurrying  away,  he  too,  from 
the  buzz  and  clack  of  the  company,  throwing  back 
a  stammering  word  of  apology  as  he  fled.  It  was 
well  known  to  me  that  he  had  a  horror  of  small 
boys — which  I  suppose  I  must  take  to  account  for 
his  attitude  of  flight,  wherever  I  see  him.  But  I 
didn't  resent  it,  indeed  I  found  it  an  interesting 
mark ;  very  pleasing  and  peculiar  was  the  manner 
of  his  hasty  retreat.  The  company  tried  to  tempt 
him  back;  he  could  perhaps  be  prevailed  on  to 
stay,  in  spite  of  the  presence  of  the  children,  and 
he  sat  silent  and  flushed,  with  a  look  of  uneasiness, 

147 


E  A  R  L  H  A  M 

but  humorously  ready  to  meet  any  challenge  from 
the  rest  of  the  party.  He  was  short  and  rubicund, 
and  he  stuttered  with  inarticulate  noises,  till  a 
remark  came  jerking  out  that  had  a  shrewd  and 
racy  turn.  And  then  he  sat  silent  again,  dis- 
regarding the  delightful  effect  of  his  gruff  retort — 
with  just  a  chuckle  of  interior  jolUty  when  it  roused 
somebody  to  a  further  flight.  And  no  doubt  he 
would  soon  slip  away  again,  but  he  left  a  very 
clear  and  a  very  attaching  and  engaging  imprint 
of  himself  on  the  mind  of  the  child — whom  I  dare 
say  he  did  not  find  so  objectionable,  after  all. 

12 

The  summer  light  of  evening  was  perfect  for 
Earlham.  The  whole  radiance  of  the  sinking  sun 
was  flung  over  the  western  lawn,  blazing  upon  the 
closed  blinds  of  the  drawing-room,  striking  the 
dark  ivy  of  the  old  gables,  kindling  the  wistaria 
round  a  chimney-stack  here  and  there  to  trans- 
parent green  and  gold.  The  recessed  little  flower- 
garden  by  the  school-room  windows,  which  had 
waited  all  day  in  cool  retirement  for  its  share  of  the 
sunshine,  now  received  it  straight  into  its  lap. 
Golden  silence,  angelic  peace  descended  upon  the 
trees,  a  hush  that  the  eternal  croon  of  the  wood- 
pigeons  in  the  oakwood  only  deepened.  Whoever 
thinks  of  Earlham  thinks  first  of  the  place  at  this 
hour  and  no  other;  Earlham  is  never  so  perfectly 
itself  as  it  is  at  the  full  close  of  its  wondrous  day. 
If  you  cross  the  west  lawn  and  look  away  to  the 
river  there,  down  the  park,  you  see  the  tall  trees 
of  the  heronry  beginning  to  darken  against  the 

148 


IN   THE   GARDEN 

light ;  while  the  willows  by  the  water,  and  the  oaks 
and  chestnuts  higher  up,  are  luminous  with  the 
powder-gold  still  caught  in  their  branches.  In  this 
fullness  of  late  summer  the  sun  does  not  fall  slant- 
ing far  into  the  north.  It  sets  with  its  face  turned 
straight  upon  the  gables  of  the  house,  and  the 
shadows  of  the  trees  come  creeping  up  the  slope 
of  the  park  towards  you,  as  you  gaze  away  to  the 
clear  gleam  of  the  water.  But  there  is  a  long  hour 
yet  before  sunset. 

I  could  wander  aside  into  the  rough  wild  of  long 
grass  that  borders  upon  one  side  of  this  lawn.  I 
think  I  have  spoken  of  the  rain-gauge  that  stood 
there,  opening  a  funnel-shaped  mouth  to  the  cloud- 
less sky.  I  liked  the  rain-gauge,  so  idle  as  it  gaped 
in  the  grass  through  our  blue  days  of  August ;  and 
I  wondered,  I  wonder  still,  in  what  manner  it  would 
mete  out  the  change  when  the  weather  broke.  The 
rough  ground  tumbled  and  rose,  deep  in  grass, 
never  far  from  the  shade  of  scattered  trees,  and 
as  you  make  your  way  across  the  patch  of  wilder- 
ness, towards  the  deeper  shadow,  you  find  yourself 
approaching  tliose  old  sulky-seats  again,  and  the 
smooth  green  alley  which  they  command.  And  if 
it  only  so  happened  that  this  serene  and  radiant 
evening  had  fallen  a  hundred  years  ago,  as  it  so 
easily  might,  there  would  have  been  a  pretty 
picture  of  life  to  be  seen  here,  likely  enough.  It 
comes  into  my  mind  through  the  suggestion  of  the 
shapely  tree-trunks,  edged  with  gold,  and  the  fine 
architecture  of  their  spreading  boughs,  and  the 
glimpses  between  and  beneath  them  of  the  sun- 
smitten  gables  and  windows  of  the  house.     Just 

149 


E  A  R  L  H  A  M 

here  it  might  naturally  chance  that  the  artist  of  the 
family,  so  cunning  with  her  pencil,  would  be  seated 
over  her  sketch-book  to  seize  the  most  pictorial  of 
golden  hours. 

A  century  ago,  then,  I  should  certainly  have  come 
upon  Aunt  Richenda  at  this  spot,  plying  her  pencil 
at  a  great  pace.  She  was  marvellously  industrious ; 
she  poured  out  her  finished  and  elegant  versions  of 
the  landscape  with  masterly  fluency,  never  pausing 
or  fumbling.  The  free  lines  flew  over  the  paper, 
lightly  sweeping  the  softer  distance,  coiling  and 
zigzagging  into  the  nearer  fohage,  digging  blackly 
and  with  firm  decision  in  the  nooks  of  the  darkest 
shadow.  Almost  while  you  wait  the  page  of  the 
sketch-book  is  covered ;  and  the  human  interest  of 
the  scene  is  not  forgotten  either,  for  in  the  vista 
of  the  smooth  alley  she  has  placed  the  graceful 
figure  of  a  young  woman  in  a  poke-bonnet,  with  a 
droll  little  skipping  child  by  her  side.  And  there 
is  your  sketch — "  the  sulky- walk  at  Earlham,"  she 
writes  beneath  it,  with  her  initials  and  the  date.  It 
is  the  fourth  or  fifth,  perhaps,  that  she  has  finished 
and  signed  this  very  day.  There  is  not  a  corner, 
not  an  angle  or  aspect,  of  the  house  and  the  garden, 
the  park  and  the  village,  that  she  has  not  recorded 
again  and  again  with  her  sweeps  and  flourishes  and 
sharp  black  touches — those  artful  twists  and  digs 
of  the  pencil  that  light  up  a  scene  and  make  it  look 
like  the  work  of  the  drawing-master  himself.  All 
her  brothers  and  sisters,  when  they  go  out  into  the 
world,  carry  with  them  a  collection  of  these  delight- 
ful mementoes  of  the  old  home — an  album,  it  may 
be,  stamped  "  Earlham  "  on  the  outside,  filled  from 

150 


IN   THE   GARDEN 

end  to  end  by  the  indefatigable  Richenda.  They 
are  trophies  that  are  valued,  carefully  preserved 
and  bequeathed  to  the  next  generation;  and  to 
this  day  we  may  know  how  Richenda  was  occupied 
on  the  evening  of  August  24,  1815.  I  wish  we 
could  be  quite  as  certain  of  the  look  of  the  garden 
and  the  sulky-walk,  as  it  lay  before  her  in  the  calm 
light;  sometimes  she  strains  our  faith,  I  must 
admit,  with  her  winding  paths  and  broken  gates 
and  ivied  walls  in  unlikely  places;  and  the  tree 
that  coils,  and  the  tree  beside  it  that  zigzags,  and 
the  third,  just  beyond,  that  is  evenly  scored  with 
flowing  curves,  are  trees  that  I  scarcely  recognize 
about  the  place  as  constantly  as  she  did.  But  I  am 
grateful  indeed  to  Aunt  Richenda,  and  with  reason ; 
for  if  doubt  may  be  cast  upon  her  portraits  of 
Earlham,  the  portrait  of  herself  that  is  implied  in 
them  has  unmistakable  truth. 

She  would  make  a  very  pleasing  picture  herself,  it 
is  clear,  as  she  sat  over  her  drawing-board,  critically 
squaring  and  sizing  the  landscape  between  her  two 
hands,  measuring  it  with  a  pencil  at  arm's  length, 
preparing  to  help  it  out  handsomely  with  her  gates 
and  crumbling  arches  if  it  failed  to  satisfy  the  eye 
of  art.  What  hours  and  hours  she  must  have  spent 
in  the  garden  on  her  camp-stool,  with  her  imple- 
ments disposed  about  her — a  familiar  sight  to  all 
the  friends  of  the  household,  as  they  strolled  to  and 
fro  with  her  bright-coloured,  bright-haired  sisters. 
On  a  fine  evening  there  would  always  be  a  settle- 
ment of  them  somewhere  on  the  lawn,  and  a  young " 
gentleman  or  so  in  attendance  who  had  walked  out 
from  Norwich  for  their  society.  One  of  these  swains, 

151 


E ARLH AM 

let  me  tell  you,  had  arrived  in  his  impatience  at 
six  o'clock  in  the  morning ;  it  had  been  agreed  that 
he  should  spend  a  long  summer's  day  with  the 
maidens  of  Earlham,  and  he  might  come  as  early 
as  he  Uked.  They  were  ready  for  him,  they  waved 
from  a  window  and  came  out  to  him — at  six  in  the 
morning;  and  till  nightfall  they  strolled  and  sat, 
talked  and  read,  with  breakfast,  dinner,  supper 
occurring  punctually  and  sumptuously  from  time 
to  time.  It  was  a  great  day;  and  the  young  man 
had  shpped  into  his  pocket,  before  he  started,  a  little 
manuscript  volume,  his  diary,  and  as  they  sat  in 
the  shade  he  read  extracts  aloud  to  them,  the 
sparkling  maidens  gathering  eagerly  round  him. 
That  was  his  chance ;  for  to  his  diary,  you  under- 
stand, he  had  confided  his  heart,  had  avowed  the 
secret  of  his  warm  preference  for  one  of  the  maidens 
above  the  rest — and  he  had  to  read  warily,  to  avoid 
stumbling  on  a  tell-tale  passage,  and  more  warily 
still,  no  doubt,  to  make  sure  that  the  stumble,  the 
blush  of  confusion,  should  be  noted  and  rightly 
interpreted  by  one  of  his  audience.  Alas,  it  served 
him  not  at  all;  "  es  ist  eine  alte  Geschichte  " — 
she  gave  her  heart  elsewhere,  without  return,  and 
she  died  unwedded;  so  did  the  young  man  of  the 
diary — "  doch  bleibt  es  immer  neu." 

It  all  composes  into  an  attractive  scene,  I  think. 
In  stricter  Quakerly  circles,  among  the  "  plain  " 
Friends  of  Norwich,  the  sociability  and  the  bright 
complexion  of  life  at  Earlham  could  scarcely  find 
approval.  The  seven  Miss  Gurneys  were  much 
addicted  to  the  dance ;  and  I  believe  it  was  Betsy 
herself,  great  and  venerable  Aunt  Fry,  who  once 

152 


IN   THE   GARDEN 

in  her  youth  appeared  at  meeting  on  Sunday  in 
purple  boots  laced  with  scarlet.  Kitty,  Betsy, 
Rachel,  they  were  the  three  eldest;  it  was  at 
Rachel,  with  her  peculiar  rare  charm,  that  the 
young  man  was  careful  not  to  glance  when  he  broke 
off  in  his  reading,  flushed  and  gulped  and  hastily 
turned  the  page.  There  was  a  gap  between  the  three 
elder  and  the  four  younger  of  the  sisters ;  but  these 
high-spirited  children,  Richenda,  Hannah,  Louisa, 
Priscilla,  easily  held  their  own,  had  their  share  in  the 
dance,  in  the  budding  romances — and  also  in  the 
compunction  of  next  day,  agreeable  too  in  its  way, 
when  they  properly  searched  their  hearts  and  con- 
victed themselves  of  vain  frivolity.  Kitty,  the 
mothering  eldest,  encouraged  them  to  pause  and 
ponder,  to  turn  their  thoughts  within;  and  each 
of  them  duly  kept  her  little  journal,  with  its  recur- 
ring burden  of  gay  and  grave.  But  Kitty  was  a 
young  woman  of  excellent  sense ;  she  on  no  account 
permitted  indulgence  in  the  pleasures  of  remorse. 
"  Not  more  than  four  lines  a  day  in  thy  journal  " 
was  a  rule  she  laid  down  at  one  time,  finding,  I 
suppose,  that  a  journal  may  become  an  excessively 
sympathetic  companion  to  a  yearning  penitent  of 
twelve.  In  four  lines  Louisa  or  Priscilla  may  dive 
quite  as  deeply  into  her  soul  as  need  be. 

So  they  all  grew  up  under  Kitty's  admirable  eye 
to  do  her  credit;  and  Richenda  in  particular 
developed  this  charming  talent  with  her  pencil. 
That  was  a  gift,  by  all  means,  which  should  be 
cultivated  seriously;  Richenda  should  have  the 
best  of  tuition.  And  it  may  easily  chance  that  her 
drawing  of  the  sulky-walk  is  accomplished  in  the 

153 


EARLH AM 

very  sight  of  the  master;  he  may  bend  over  her 
shoulder  and  criticize  her  foreground,  her  human 
interest,  her  "  side-screens  "  and  the  rest  of  it.  Mr. 
Crome  was  her  master,  the  old  original  Crome  of 
Norwich — no  less.  He  came  out  to  Earlham  to  give 
her  lessons,  he  sketched  with  her  in  the  park ;  and 
still  in  our  day  the  house  held  a  relic  or  two  of  his 
visits,  apart  from  the  imprint  of  his  teaching  that 
was  discernible,  no  doubt,  in  Aunt  I^ichenda's 
proliferation  of  master-pieces.  The  name  of  the 
distinguished  old  painter  was  always  mentioned 
at  Earlham  with  great  respect;  and  everybody 
was  pleased  that  Aunt  Richenda's  drawing-master 
should  have  been  discovered  by  the  world.  She 
herself  may  surely  be  considered  to  belong  to  the 
"  Norwich  school."  Earlham,  at  any  rate,  had 
warmly  supported  and  welcomed  old  Crome ;  when 
the  whole  family-party  travelled  away  to  the  north, 
for  a  holiday  among  the  lakes  and  the  mountains, 
they  carried  the  master  with  them,  so  that  the 
holiday  was  no  break  in  the  pursuit  of  art.  Rich- 
enda,  I  judge,  missed  not  a  single  toppling  crag  or 
mouldering  ruin  on  their  journey;  she  brought 
them  all  home  again,  duly  named  and  signed  and 
dated,  in  a  trunk-load  of  bursting  sketch-books. 

13 
They  grew  more  serious,  as  the  years  of  the  young 
century  increased,  but  not  less  cheerful.  The  purple 
boots  were  laid  aside,  Betsy  became  very  "  plain  " 
indeed;  all  the  sisters  settled  down  to  lives  of 
exemplary  purpose.  But  there  was  a  fine  spirit, 
a  free  humour  in  the  family,  which  saved  them  from 

154 


IN  THE  GARDEN 

any  blight  of  dull  precision  in  their  middle  age; 
they  really  succeeded  in  gracing  virtue  and  solid 
worth  with  a  lively  charm.  The  richest  nature  of 
them  all  was  the  young  brother  Samuel,  soon  to 
become  a  true  Brother  Cheeryble  of  the  city,  at 
whose  substantial  settlement  to  the  east  of  London, 
somewhere  near  Stratford,  I  glanced  a  while  ago. 
Large-hearted,  large-handed,  merry  and  shrewd  and 
sage,  he  was  a  very  worthy  figure  of  a  christian 
merchant.  In  him  the  genius  of  his  family,  crisply 
stirring  and  gleaming,  was  liberally  represented. 
Joseph  John,  the  brother  who  remained  at  Earlham, 
was  of  a  milder  habit,  more  subdued  in  pensive 
gravity ;  he  was  much  occupied  with  his  Quakerly 
"  concern "  (mark  well  the  word),  a  call  that 
sometimes  led  him  far  afield — to  America  even, 
more  than  once.  Betsy  found  her  concern  in  the 
pestiferous  prison-houses  which  she  helped  to 
purge,  Richenda  (with  her  husband)  administered 
and  enlivened  her  sea-side  parish.  And  so  on  with 
them  all;  and  Earlham  was  ever  in  the  midst  of 
them,  ready  with  a  welcome,  gathering  them  in 
again  from  time  to  time,  till  at  last  the  big  party 
diminished  and  there  were  fewer  and  fewer  of  them 
to  meet  on  the  great  lawn. 

And  the  mothering  Kitty,  meanwhile,  who  might 
well  be  proud  of  her  brood — she  lived  always  in 
their  concerns  and  achievements,  her  brothers  and 
sisters  were  her  career.  Rightly,  I  think,  Joseph 
John  should  never  have  married,  and  Kitty  (now 
ripening  into  "  dear  Aunt  Catherine  ")  should  have 
kept  house  for  him  at  Earlham  to  the  end.  But  he 
did  marry,  he  even  married  three  times ;  and  some 

155 


E ARLHAM 

of  his  wives  (not  all,  certainly  not  the  last,  good 
Eliza  from  America,  who  survived  him) — the 
the  presence  of  some  of  his  wives,  I  say,  made  it 
perhaps  advisable  for  Aunt  Catherine  to  have  a 
nice  little  home  of  her  own,  independent  of  Earlham. 
She  had  one  eventually;  but  through  long  years 
she  had  grown  so  deeply  identified  with  Earlham 
that  we  can  hardly  think  of  her  anywhere  else, 
and  in  memory  she  is  always  here,  the  presiding 
genius,  the  gracious  and  dignified  old  lady  of  the 
Ante-room  Chamber.  As  time  went  by,  her 
motherly  care  extended  to  a  growing  army  of  young 
nephews  and  nieces;  she  watched  them,  you  may 
suppose  with  what  tender  interest,  when  Earlham 
began  to  be  haunted  and  cherished  by  a  new 
generation.  Brother  Samuel,  especially,  had  a 
large  and  most  promising  family;  and  he  brought 
them  often  to  Earlham,  rumbling  splendidly  up  to 
the  front-door  in  his  great  barouche.  They  drove 
from  London,  with  a  night  on  the  way  at  the 
familiar  inn  of  Thetf ord ;  and  the  carriage  was  like 
a  nice  little  home  in  itself  for  the  couple  of  days, 
"  lined  with  fawn-coloured  silk,"  very  big  and 
comfortable  with  its  cushions  and  its  deep  pockets 
and  its  flight  of  folding-steps. 

Aunt  Catherine  was  delighted  to  see  them; 
Samuel's  children  were  a  beautiful  party,  nearly  a 
dozen  of  them,  I  should  think,  in  course  of  time. 
Before  Aunt  Catherine  could  turn  round  they  were 
grown  up,  the  daughters  were  marrying,  brother 
Samuel  was  a  grandfather.  But  the  eldest  son  was 
still  unmarried ;  and  he  might  well  be  at  Earlham 
a  good  deal,  for  he  was  delicate,  not  strong  enough 

156 


IN  THE  GARDEN 

for  the  routine  of  his  father's  counting-house  in 
London.  And  now  I  must  say  that  Aunt  Catherine 
had  made  the  acquaintance  of  an  interesting  family 
who  hved  in  Norwich,  in  the  Cathedral  Close — a 
respected  clergyman,  with  an  extremely  pretty  and 
talented  wife  and  several  young  daughters;  and 
particularly  for  one  of  the  daughters  Aunt  Catherine 
had  the  warmest  affection,  gratefully  returned  and 
reciprocated  by  the  girl  herself.  And  that  was  how 
it  came  about  that  John  Gurney,  son  of  Samuel, 
married  Laura  Pearse  and  went  to  live  at  the  Lodge, 
the  old  white  house  that  abuts  on  the  church-yard 
in  Earlham  village.  John  and  Laura — they  were 
living  there,  you  remember,  at  the  time  of  the 
death  of  Uncle  Joseph  John,  when  Earlham  Hall 
stood  empty  after  so  many  fruitful  years.  They 
walked  round  the  deserted  garden,  looked  up  at  the 
closed  windows;  and  the  young  wife  could  not 
foresee  that  for  nearly  fifty  years  it  would  be  she, 
she  and  none  other,  who  to  the  far-scattered 
kindred  of  Earlham,  young  and  old,  would  represent 
the  spirit  and  the  benediction  of  the  place. 

I  have  come  round  to  this  point  again,  a  second 
time,  for  the  pleasure  of  seeing  how  rightly  and 
beautifully  it  happened  that  our  grandmother  was 
drawn  towards  the  life  of  Earlham.  They  were 
made  for  each  other,  Earlham  and  she ;  grace  and 
charity  met  together,  goodness  and  gaiety  kissed, 
when  she  came  under  its  roof  and  renewed  the 
felicity  of  its  old  story.  She  was  a  girl  of  seventeen 
when  she  married,  and  the  Cathedral  Close  was  her 
world ;  but  she  stepped  from  the  household  of  her 
family  with  the  air  and  mien  of  ripe  dignity,  just  as 

157 


EARLHAM 

at  Earlham,  fifty  years  later,  her  laughter  chimed 
out  with  the  freshness  of  seventeen.  She  married, 
and  within  a  very  few  years,  as  I  have  told,  her 
husband  died,  leaving  her  with  her  young  children 
at  Earlham;  she  was  hardly  more  than  a  girl 
herself,  even  then.  Alone  with  her  babies  in  that 
wide  serenity  of  lawn  and  garden,  she  took  up  her 
responsibility  with  a  natural  grace  that  sets  a 
spectator,  at  the  distance  of  to-day,  admiring  and 
wondering  anew.  From  somewhere,  I  don't  know 
how,  I  receive  a  glimpse  of  her  in  the  time  of  her 
youthful  widowhood — it  is  in  Earlham  church 
again,  on  a  summer  morning,  when  the  congregation 
stand  ready  to  disperse  at  the  end  of  the  service. 
The  big  Gurney  hatchment  was  hanging  then,  as  it 
hung  ever  after,  in  the  tiny  transept;  and  our 
grandmother  would  occupy  the  seat  within  the 
carved  oak  chancel-screen  where  I  see  her  so  well 
in  her  age.  There  she  would  be  seated,  long  ago, 
with  her  small  brood  about  her;  and  it  is  so  long 
ago,  in  that  simple  old  mid-century  England,  that 
the  rustic  gathering  of  the  villagers  stand  still  in 
their  places,  yes  indeed,  while  the  young  mistress 
of  the  Hall  passes  down  the  aisle,  her  pretty  children 
in  her  hand.  Serenely  natural,  gracefully  upright 
and  composed,  she  would  pass  down  the  little  nave, 
followed  by  friendly  eyes — any  of  us  can  clearly 
see  that  picture.  Aunt  Catherine,  by  this  time  at 
rest  in  her  honoured  grave,  might  well  salute  her 
as  the  true  inheritress  of  the  genius  of  Earlham. 


158 


IN  THE  GARDEN 


14 
That  family  in  the  Close,  the  daughters  of  the 

respected  clergyman  (not  yet  removed  to  Martham, 
away  in  the  wilds) — they  were  indeed  a  rare  house- 
hold. There  were  five  of  them,  and  before  they 
married  (but  they  all  married  very  soon)  they  were 
an  attraction  to  many  eyes,  as  they  issued  from  the 
fine  old  gate  of  the  cathedral  precincts  and  crossed 
the  open  space  of  Tombland.  Heads  might  be  seen 
appearing  at  the  windows  of  the  bank-parlour  and 
the  solicitor's  office,  I  have  heard,  when  the  five 
Miss  Pearses  went  down  the  street  in  a  posse.  But 
on  one  point  let  there  be  no  mistake ;  they  were  the 
daughters  of  the  exquisite  authoress  of  Earthly 
Idols,  and  I  need  not  say  whether  or  no  the  standard 
of  her  gentility  was  strict ;  and  it  follows  that  the 
society  of  the  Close  was  exclusive.  I  don't  know 
precisely  where  the  rector's  lady  ruled  her  lines,  but 
you  may  be  sure  there  was  no  mistaking  them ;  the 
bank-clerks  and  the  scriveners  might  press  to  the 
window  for  a  sight  of  the  blooming  posse,  but  they 
looked  from  afar.  What  was  the  society  of  the 
Close  ? — it  is  what  I  have  often  wondered  at,  think- 
ing of  our  grandmother  and  her  sisters,  how  from 
their  secluded  school-room  they  stepped  into  the 
world  with  their  perfect  bearing  of  composed 
maturity.  There  was  the  palace,  the  deanery,  the 
houses  of  the  canons — aU  very  polite,  no  doubt, 
but  you  cannot  say  that  they  represented  a  varied 
range;  and  the  education  of  these  young  ladies 
seemed  to  have  been  conducted  under  far  ampler 

159 


EARLHAM 

skies.     They  had  little  but  the  example  of  their 
wondrous  mother — apparently  it  was  enough. 

Great-grandmother  Pearse,  with  her  rare  manner 
and  her  porcelain  complexion  and  her  romantic 
heart,  must  have  looked  with  satisfaction  upon  her 
daughters.  What  would  she  have  done  if  she  had 
found  herself  the  mother  of  commonplace  awkward 
young  women,  destitute  of  charm  ? — she  would  have 
been  deeply  mortified.  As  it  was,  she  might  be 
reminded  of  her  own  blush  of  youth,  to  look  at 
them,  recognizing  at  the  same  time  (as  her  daughters 
did  too,  perfectly)  that  none  of  them  was  as  pretty 
as  she.  The  sight  of  them  might  set  her  thought 
ranging  back  to  the  past,  to  the  rose-leaf  maiden  of 
other  days;  though  I  suspect  that  she  scarcely 
needed  an  impulse  from  without  to  turn  her  mind 
upon  that  sweet  vision.  It  was  all  true — she  had 
been,  she  was,  a  lovely  creature;  and  I  think  her 
fancy  might  carry  her  at  times,  and  naturally 
enough,  far  above  and  beyond  the  respected  roof  in 
Norwich  Close.  There  was  once  a  girl  who  sat  by 
her  chamber  window,  late  at  night,  leaning  out  into 
the  chilly  darkness — looking  for  whom,  do  you 
suppose?  Not  for  her  lover,  fleeting  and  false, 
but  for  death — it  was  for  death  that  she  waited  and 
longed;  and  in  her  scanty  white  night-dress  she 
hung  out  in  the  chill  air,  praying  that  she  might 
catch  cold  and  die  and  end  her  pain.  The  girl  was 
she,  the  pretty  old  great-grandmother  in  her  youth, 
and  there  was  no  roseate  romance  in  her  heart  at 
that  moment ;  but  long  years  afterwards  she  might 
look  back  at  the  far-away  vision  with  a  stirring  of 
emotion  in  which  there  was  no  more  pain,  in  wluch 

i6o 


IN  THE  GARDEN 

there  was  even  a  little  warmth  of  pride  at  the 
thought  of  that  sweet  sad  picture  of  the  past.  She 
was  the  rector's  lady,  living  in  the  sedate  and 
respectable  Close — she  was  the  mother  of  these 
eager  happy  clear-eyed  daughters;  but  she  had 
known,  she  had  known  what  it  is  to  love  and  suffer, 
and  under  her  seemly  old  lace  and  lavender  silk 
she  was  still  the  heroine  of  romance.  The  pleasure 
of  that  knowledge  remained  with  her  undimmed, 
to  the  end  of  her  days. 

Much  of  her  spirit  survived  in  her  daughters,  I 
think,  though  in  them  it  was  changed  and  strength- 
ened ;  they  lived  among  clearer  reahties,  on  deeper 
emotions.  But  evidently  it  was  to  their  mother 
that  they  owed  the  light  breeze  of  freedom,  that 
ripple  of  silver  gaiety,  which  seems  to  have  set 
through  their  lives  and  to  have  lasted  through 
all  the  chances  of  their  lot.  It  is  only  of  one  of 
them  indeed,  of  our  grandmother,  that  I  can  speak 
with  a  full  memory ;  it  must  be  chiefly  of  her  that 
I  think.  Yet  there  were  many  echoes  of  them  all 
that  might  easily  reach  us,  in  the  air  of  old  days  at 
Earlham,  and  I  well  know  the  fresh  note  of  origin- 
ality that  is  ever  to  be  recognized.  There  was 
always  a  difference  in  them,  something  of  their  own, 
freely  irregular  and  conforming  to  no  rule ;  I  have 
tried  to  seize  a  glance  of  it  here  and  there,  in  our 
grandmother,  and  I  wish  I  could  follow  it  further 
among  her  sisters.  It  would  be  before  the  image  of 
one  of  them  in  particular,  whom  I  have  not  yet 
encountered,  that  I  should  be  tempted  to  linger. 
That  one,  no  doubt,  with  her  pretty  graces  and  airs 
and  winning  ways,  was  the  nearest  in  likeness  to 

i6i  M 


EARLHAM 

their  mother ;  and  when  I  recall  what  I  can  of  her 
undying  unfading  charm,  as  fresh  as  ever  at  the 
end  of  her  long  life,  I  see  a  peculiar  kind  of  dis- 
tinction at  its  very  best.  A  beautiful  pose,  a  finished 
manner,  a  grace  of  bearing  civilized  and  humanized 
in  the  art  of  life — certainly  these  make  a  dis- 
tinguished impression,  they  may  seem  to  represent 
the  perfection  of  style.  But  style  of  that  order  falls 
short  after  all,  as  anybody  can  perceive  when  the 
completing  touch  is  added  to  it.  Perfection  is 
reached  when  the  finished  impression  is  ever  so 
lightly  disturbed,  deranged — when  the  breeze  of 
freedom,  as  I  call  it,  flutters  over  the  worked 
surface,  waking  a  movement,  a  shifting  flaw  that 
defeats  the  eye  of  the  onlooker.  That  is  the  final 
flower  of  style,  and  I  recognize  it  in  my  remem- 
brance of  this  sister  of  our  grandmother's.  There 
ran  through  her  charm  a  sort  of  tinkle  and  trill  of 
natural  lawlessness — it  was  irresistible.  She  easily 
evaded  the  law  of  time ;  she  died  full  of  years,  but 
she  never  grew  old. 

15 

So  much  it  had  taken,  such  people,  such  talk, 

such  golden  hours,  to  make  our  beautiful  Earlham. 
And  daily  it  was  enriched,  its  tone  was  deepened 
by  the  deposit  of  new  memories ;  no  day  could  set- 
without  adding  the  full  bounty  of  its  dehght  to  the 
ancient  store.  As  the  dusk  thickened  and  the 
slashes  of  rich  sunlight  faded  off  the  grass,  the 
western  gables,  the  topmost  chimneys — even  a 
child  could  be  dimly  aware  that  Earlham  was  more, 
was  richer  and  loveher,   than  it  had  been  only 

162 


IN  THE  GARDEN 

yesterday.  There  could  be  no  dead  or  dull  or  vacant 
times  in  such  a  place;  every  turn  of  the  hour 
brought  its  worthy  contribution,  and  none  more 
lavishly  than  the  hour  of  sunset,  when  it  would  seem 
as  though  the  senses  are  quicker  than  ever  to  catch 
the  last  admonitions  of  the  day.  Certainly  I  find 
it  impossible,  more  so  than  at  any  other  time,  to 
gather  and  reckon  the  hoard  of  associations  that 
live  again  in  the  twilight,  round  the  house  and 
across  the  lawn  and  among  the  darkened  shrub- 
beries. They  are  everywhere  at  once,  softly  shining 
and  calling — and  I  can  only  answer  a  very  few. 

But  first  there  is  a  chatter  and  a  crowd  about  the 
front-door,  where  a  carriage  waits  for  the  departure 
of  the  visitors.  We  all  collect  for  a  friendly  farewell, 
and  there  is  kissing  and  waving,  stamping  and 
jingling,  and  the  carriage  bowls  away  under  the 
blackness  of  the  chestnut-grove.  The  children  go 
scampering  after  it — but  indeed  the  shadows,  once 
you  are  round  the  corner  and  out  of  sight  of  the 
house,  are  lonely  and  solemn  by  now;  I  prefer  to 
slip  away  into  the  open,  over  the  short  roll  of  the 
park  that  descends  towards  the  church  and  the 
village.  There  the  light  comes  raking  across  from 
the  west,  warm  with  the  faint  rose-flush  of  an  after- 
glow ;  very  still  and  warm  and  grass-scented  is  the 
air  in  the  open,  away  from  the  trees.  If  you  wander 
off  in  that  direction  you  come  upon  the  other  drive, 
the  one  that  marches  straight  from  the  steps  of  the 
front-door,  under  the  towering  limes,  to  the  white 
gate  by  the  church;  it  passes  through  the  short 
tunnel  of  the  limes,  and  then  over  the  open  park  to 
the  gate  and  the  road.    I  find  myself  veering  down 

163 


E ARLH AM 

towards  that  gate — though  really  it  is  impossible 
to  suppose  that  I  could  travel  so  far  at  this  hour  of 
the  dusk;  but  in  fancy,  at  any  rate,  I  reach  the 
further  end  of  the  straight  drive,  for  you  get  a 
glimpse  of  the  house  from  there  which  besets  my 
thought. 

Suppose  you  were  passing  along  the  highway  at 
that  point,  coming  from  Norwich  and  knowing 
nothing  of  Earlham,  and  you  happened  to  pause 
at  the  gate  and  glance  up  the  straight  cart-road 
(I  ought  not  to  call  it  a  drive) — here  would  be  your 
first  sight  of  the  house,  so  thickly  the  trees  are 
massed  about  it  to  the  east ;  and  knowing  nothing 
of  Earlham,  you  divine  little  or  nothing  of  what  it 
really  is.  Your  eye  follows  the  line  of  the  cart-road, 
across  the  open  park,  till  it  disappears  in  the 
shadow  of  the  lime-avenue,  and  between  the  trees 
you  catch  this  single  glimpse  of  the  house — the 
front-door  only,  with  its  low  pediment,  and  a 
window  or  two  beside  and  above  it.  It  is  a  sight 
that  tells  you  nothing  of  the  place ;  you  might  think 
it  rather  formal  and  forbidding.  The  house  on  this 
side,  you  remember,  had  been  plastered  over  and 
painted — by  one  of  Joseph  John's  puritanical  wives, 
so  we  understood,  who  was  all  for  keeping  a  house 
(like  herself)  as  plain  and  drab  as  possible.  So  she 
had  plastered  the  old  brickwork  of  the  house-front 
and  painted  it  a  pinkish,  huffish  white;  and  the 
glimpse  that  you  had  from  the  road  gave  you 
nothing  but  the  impression  of  an  ordinary  respect- 
able mansion,  a  "  hall "  Hke  any  other,  withdrawn 
in  gentlemanly  discretion  among  the  trees  of  its 
park.    With  a  considerable  effort  of  imagination  I 

164 


IN  THE  GARDEN 

picture  the  sight  as  it  would  be  seen  by  a  stranger. 
If  I  were  the  stranger  I  should  not  look  twice  at 
the  house,  I  should  pass  on  down  the  road  to  the 
bridge  and  the  river. 

But  to  us  that  peep  of  a  plain  bare  house  among 
the  trees  had  pecuhar  intimations  of  poetry.  Its 
aspect  of  solemn  gentility  was  always  connected, 
you  see,  with  the  thought  of  arriving  at  Earlham. 
We  approached  it  on  this  side,  and  with  that  prim- 
mouthed  look,  so  untrue  to  itself,  our  Earlham 
received  its  children.  Did  the  house  seem  stiff  and 
ungenial  in  its  manner  of  welcome?  We  knew 
better — knew  what  a  different  expression  it  showed 
as  soon  as  you  were  fairly  in  its  arms.  There  was 
charm  in  the  thought  that  it  turned  a  dumb  mask 
to  the  world,  revealing  nothing  to  the  casual 
stranger  on  the  highway ;  and  the  friendly  freedom 
and  sweetness  of  its  intimacy  were  enhanced  by  the 
contrast.  So  to  me  as  I  stand  at  the  gate  of  the 
church-drive,  like  any  chance  passer-by,  this  appeal 
of  the  prospect  is  renewed,  the  waft  of  sensation 
returns — and  I  could  revolve  the  thought,  caress- 
ingly, of  all  that  is  screened  from  unknowing  eyes. 
It  is  an  ordinary-looking  mansion,  oh  yes,  and  a  few 
yards  down  the  road  you  come  to  the  bridge,  and 
to  Borrow's  fishing-pool,  and  to  a  stretch  of  water- 
meadows  that  are  very  pretty  with  their  buttercups 
and  loosestrife — pass  on  and  admire  them,  for  you 
may.  But  if  you  knew,  if  you  knew  the  heart  of 
beauty  and  life  and  romance  that  lies  up  there 
among  the  trees,  quietly  waiting,  you  would  stay 
by  the  gate  and  tenderly  fondle  the  thought.  Half 
way  up  to  the  house,  in  the  open  of  the  park,  stood 

165 


EARLHAM 

a  genteel  wellingtonia,  and  to  a  stranger  that  too, 
I  suppose,  would  wear  a  formal  look — but  if  you 
knew! 

So  it  returns  to  me ;  and  with  this  I  get  another 
hint,  expressive  in  its  way,  from  the  view  of  the 
house  in  the  distance.  It  suddenly  looks  remote 
and  historical — not  historical  in  any  grand  sense 
of  the  word,  but  with  a  suggestion  of  its  placid  old 
durability,  its  power  to  stand  on  there  behind  its 
limes,  as  it  has  stood  for  so  long,  whether  we  go  or 
come  and  whatever  we  think  of  it.  I  see  how  much 
more  history  it  has  had  than  I  can  share,  than  I 
can  embrace  with  the  utmost  reach  of  my 
sympathy ;  and  I  am  far  from  resenting  the  touch 
of  aloofness  which  it  cannot  always  conceal.  Its 
blank  face  does  hide  something,  even  from  me;  I 
don't  know  who  built  the  house,  I  don't  know  who 
lived  there  for  a  hundred  years  and  more ;  but  the 
blind  background  of  its  past  may  seem  to  make  its 
present  familiarity  the  more  gracious  and  touching 
in  its  freedom.  It  had  had  its  youth,  its  early 
changes  and  chances,  many  of  them ;  and  all  these 
were  forgotten  and  buried  when  the  later  cycle  of  its 
romance  was  inaugurated.  Who  lived  at  Earlham 
before  the  incursion  of  our  old  Gurneys  in  their 
eighteenth-century  youth  ?  An  ancient  family  lived 
there,  I  just  know  so  much  as  their  name ;  but  not  a 
whisper  of  a  tradition  ever  reached  us  from  their 
time,  and  for  us  they  were  not.  We  conceived 
ourselves  to  have  appropriated  Earlham  so  in- 
tensely that  not  even  a  ghost  from  its  earlier  past 
could  hold  its  own  there.  A  fine  pretension  on  our 
part — and  the  placid  face  of  the  house  might  very 

i66 


IN   THE  GARDEN 

well  send  a  glance  of  irony  through  the  twilight,  as 
I  say  the  words. 

No  matter,  I  like  the  sense  that  Earlham  pos- 
sessed a  forgotten  past,  buried  away  in  the  distance. 
I  could  rake  up  some  of  it  even  now,  no  doubt; 
and  it  comes  back  to  me  that  the  blue  lady,  framed 
in  the  wainscot  of  our  grandmother's  bedroom,  was 
held  to  be  a  daughter  of  the  earlier  dynasty,  so  that 
one  relic  of  them  at  any  rate  had  survived.  But  it  is 
part  of  the  thought  of  Earlham,  for  me,  that 
mystery  and  silence  should  obscure  its  origins,  and 
I  have  no  wish  to  change  and  re-model  the  thought 
at  this  late  day.  And  when  I  speak  of  the  ancient 
family  who  had  inhabited  the  place  of  yore,  I  am 
reminded  of  the  rather  odd  fact  (I  have  mentioned 
it  already)  that  our  good  Gurneys  never  literally 
and  legally  owned  it — they  never  owned  the  house 
and  the  park,  only  some  contiguous  lands.  It  was 
a  long-drawn-out  tenancy,  protracted  over  genera- 
tions ;  and  the  fact  was  not  at  all  without  meaning 
for  the  children  at  our  end  of  the  chain.  We  were 
clearly  aware  that  the  house  did  not  "  belong,"  we 
believed  that  an  alien  hand  might  imaginably 
descend  to  clutch  it  away  from  our  grandparents. 
I  dare  say  there  was  no  danger  of  that;  but  our 
belief  assuredly  gave  a  spice  of  seasoning  to  the 
mellowness  of  Earlham  days — we  felt  we  were 
leagued  against  the  unknown.  Mystery  and  un- 
certainty were  thus  perceptible  in  the  air,  if  you 
cared  to  think  of  it ;  and  you  might  care  at  times, 
just  for  the  sake  of  the  romantic  effect ;  there  was 
no  fear  of  finding  too  much  of  it  for  comfort.  If  you 
begin  to  be  harassed  by  uneasy  speculations,  look 

167 


EARLH AM 

again — the  house  stands  there  serenely,  always 
ready  to  soothe  and  to  re-assure.  And  it  is  certainly 
strange  that  the  chill  plainness  of  its  front  should 
have  set  me  thinking  of  its  ancient  detachment; 
for  the  plaster  and  white  paint  were  comparatively 
a  modern  mischance  in  its  history,  due  to  that  drab- 
minded  great-great-aunt  of  our  own. 

i6 

With  the  shutting  down  of  night  upon  the  park 
and  the  trees  I  part  company  for  a  time  with  the 
child  I  have  been  following.  The  darkness  sends 
the  child  packing  indoors ;  and  it  is  a  heavier  spirit, 
to  tell  the  truth,  that  still  haunts  the  deserted, 
mist- wreathed  pastures.  To  remember  how  much 
had  gone  to  the  making  of  Earlham  is  to  remember, 
not  less,  how  much  there  was  to  lose ;  a  single  day 
in  the  life  of  the  child  is  enough  to  give  me  the  full 
measure.  It  is  all  dead  and  gone,  the  place  as  we 
knew  it  is  buried  many  years  deep  in  memory. 
For  us  its  daily  enrichment,  its  hourly  increase, 
came  long  ago  to  an  end ;  our  experience  of  Earlham 
was  laid  away  in  the  past,  in  the  form  that  it  hap- 
pened to  have  on  a  certain  day,  and  there  it  has 
remained.  There  was  to  be  no  more  of  Earlham  for 
us,  from  that  day — no  more  than  we  already  pos- 
sessed. Our  grandmother  died,  tranquilly  breathing 
out  her  beautiful  life  under  its  roof,  and  for  us  too 
her  death  was  good-bye  to  the  place. 

But  good-bye? — ^when  we  can  and  do  re- visit 
the  place  so  often  and  so  confidently,  it  is  not  yet 
time  to  say  good-bye  to  Earlham.  And  whenever 
we  turn  back  to  that  memory  and  spend  a  summer's 

i68 


IN  THE  GARDEN 

day  there  again,  no  doubt  but  the  hours  will  have 
added  their  store,  will  have  deepened  the  enchant- 
ment of  Earlham  by  nightfall;  so  that  there  is 
always  more  to  possess  than  there  seemed  to  be 
yesterday.  It  is  so,  I  am  well  aware ;  and  none  the 
less  among  the  shadows  of  fancy,  among  the  wreaths 
of  mist  that  creep  from  the  river  and  lie  in  the 
hollows  of  the  pasture,  the  mind  hankers  after  the 
substance  of  the  days  dead  and  gone.  They  were 
no  brighter,  no  clearer  than  this  day  of  memory 
which  I  have  spent  among  the  sights  and  scents 
and  voices  of  the  garden — it  is  true.  Yet  the 
adventure,  the  uncertainty,  the  limitless  possibility 
is  no  longer  there;  and  I  see  how  it  is  that  even 
while  I  tread  the  grass  and  breathe  the  warm  night 
air  under  the  limes,  there  is  something  that  I  miss 
from  of  old.  One's  memory  is  safe — that,  with  all 
its  richness,  is  still  its  incurable  poverty.  When  I 
now  return  to  Earlham  and  wander  through  my 
thought  of  the  house  and  garden,  it  is  always  to-day 
and  to-day  only;  there  is  no  budding  morrow, 
bringing  on  the  unknown.  This  is  not  the  Earlham 
that  I  knew,  after  all;  the  place  that  I  knew  was 
open  to  the  future,  one  could  look  forward  there 
with  hope  as  well  as  backward  with  fond  regret. 
Here  it  is  that  the  glimpses  of  memory  inevitably 
fail ;  they  show  me  a  closed  garden,  bounded  on  all 
sides,  with  no  way  open  for  the  promise  of  the 
morrow.  It  is  very  unlike  the  garden  that  was — 
how  unlike  I  well  understand,  when  the  night  falls 
which  should  be  bringing  an  unknown  day.  I  know 
all  the  days  of  this  Earlham  of  remembrance,  I 
know  them  by  heart. 

169 


E ARLH AM 

If  I  could  forget  the  morrow  in  the  fragrant 
darkness,  if  I  could  go  forward  under  the  limes  in  a 
new  and  strange  uncertainty — that  indeed  would 
be  the  last  triumph  of  a  faithful  memory.  However 
dark  it  might  be  I  should  be  sure  enough  of  my 
way;  I  should  have  no  need  of  eyes  to  guide  me 
through  the  lime-avenue  to  the  garden-gate,  the 
little  iron  gate  which  leads  to  the  dell  of  the  weeping 
ash.  But  suppose  for  a  moment  that  I  could  pass 
through  the  gate,  hearing  the  well-known  slam  as  it 
swings  shut  behind  me,  and  wander  off  into  the 
blackness  of  the  oakwood,  over  the  pebbly  floor  of 
its  clearings  and  among  the  paper-rustle  of  the 
honesty — and  all  this  in  ignorance,  in  doubt  of  the 
future,  such  ignorance  and  doubt  as  I  have  not 
known  at  Earlham  for  so  many  years.  It  is  nothing 
to  remember  all  the  paths  and  alleys  and  cleared 
spaces  as  exactly  as  I  do,  even  though  it  is  now 
pitch-dark  in  these  recesses;  I  want  rather  to 
forget,  to  forget  what  the  next  day  will  bring  with 
it,  so  that  as  I  stray  through  the  night  I  may  be 
able  to  wonder  and  hope,  perhaps  even  to  fear.  If 
that  were  possible,  how  the  sense  of  Earlham  would 
live  again! — I  should  be  quick  to  note  the  change 
from  an  Earlham  immortal,  exempt,  safe  out  of  the 
way  of  the  chances  of  to-morrow,  to  the  Earlham 
that  I  knew  once,  exposed  to  the  future  like  the 
rest  of  us,  living  a  mortal  life.  So  only,  I  see,  could 
I  really  re- visit  the  place;  and  this  Ungering  and 
brooding  over  a  memory  that  is  timeless,  scatheless, 
cannot  satisfy  me  in  the  soft  night-silence. 

Here   then   is   something   that    I   have   missed 
hitherto  and  that  I  might  set  myself  to  discover 

170 


IN  THE  GARDEN 

in  the  darkness.  To  forget  that  the  story  is  closed, 
its  promise  fulfilled,  its  uncertainty  at  rest — to 
re-capture  a  doubt,  the  presence  of  a  question 
unanswered — I  could  imagine  that  even  this  might 
be  attainable  at  such  an  hour,  in  such  a  place. 
Well  as  I  know  my  way  through  the  wood,  where 
every  tree-stem  meets  my  hand  with  a  companion- 
able touch,  there  might  surely  come  the  moment 
when  I  find  myself  at  a  loss,  pausing  in  wonder — 
and  at  least  for  the  moment  there  would  be  a  break, 
no  matter  how  trifling,  in  the  security  of  the  past. 
Yet  indeed  it  is  not  conceivable  that  I  should 
hesitate  anywhere  among  these  trees,  and  still  less 
when  I  regain  the  open  of  the  clear  night,  on  the 
verge  of  the  small  west  lawn.  The  glimmer  of  the 
white  sulky-seats  is  plainly  discernible,  further  on ; 
the  path  leaves  them  to  one  side  and  heads  forward, 
through  more  black  pools  and  caves  of  shadow,  to 
the  next  open  space — the  great  lawn  itself,  on  which 
so  many  hours  of  the  long  day  have  already  been 
spent. 

Well,  it  is  not  to  be  looked  for  that  I  should  find 
uncertainty  here,  with  every  footstep  sinking 
without  a  sound  into  the  peace  and  friendliness  of 
the  grassy  floor.  The  lawn  is  the  very  place  where 
the  past,  dead  and  gone,  seems  most  aloof  in  its 
immunity  from  time  and  chance.  Not  in  musing 
memory,  not  in  reflection  and  rumination,  is  it 
ever  given  us  to  return  to  the  past,  the  real  past 
that  was  a  story  unfinished.  I  cannot  get  there 
except  in  dreams — in  dreams  it  is  easy  enough; 
I  need  the  help  of  the  dream-maker  in  the  brain, 
who  shuts  off  my  knowledge  of  the  end  of  the  story 

171 


EARLH AM 

when  he  begins  to  unroll  the  scene.  Returning  to 
Earlham  by  that  swift  flight,  I  recover  the  real  true 
thing  indeed;  I  may  then  go  and  come  in  the 
garden  at  nightfall  without  a  suspicion  of  what  the 
morning  is  to  bring.  It  is  the  only  way — fortunate 
that  it  may  still  be  open  now  and  then.  In  the 
mere  day-dream  of  memory  one  must  be  content 
with  the  vividness  of  the  image  that  can  charm  and 
ravish  and  absorb  as  of  old,  but  that  has  no  longer 
any  power  to  stir  with  hopes  and  fears,  disquieting 
and  appealing.  There  is  no  help  for  it ;  memory  is 
unassailable,  a  garden  enclosed. 

Let  me  then  once  more,  before  leaving  the 
solitude  of  the  lawn,  take  in  the  impression  of  its 
wide  serenity.  From  the  further  edge  of  it  nothing 
could  be  seen  of  the  house,  in  the  moonless  night, 
but  a  black  mass  that  was  partly  the  house,  partly 
the  great  tree-tops  behind  it;  they  were  indis- 
tinguishably  merged.  House  and  trees  together, 
they  showed  impenetrably  black  against  the  sky — 
a  sky  that  was  almost  as  dark,  but  of  darkness  open 
and  free  and  distant.  The  spangle  of  stars  looked 
faint  and  blurred  in  the  mildness  of  the  night ; 
it  was  not  a  domed  firmament  that  hung  over- 
head, but  the  soft  and  yielding  dimness  of  space. 
Very  slowly  advancing  over  the  grass,  I  should 
gradually  make  out  the  build  and  form  of  the  house, 
with  its  wings  thrown  forward,  the  deeper  velvet 
of  night  between  them,  the  pale  shine  of  the  cream- 
white  porch  in  the  middle.  And  the  lights,  the 
lights  in  some  of  the  open  windows — not  brilliant 
at  all  in  those  old  candle-lit  days,  not  striking  out 
into  the  darkness,  but  lurking  shyly  within,  gently 

172 


IN   THE   GARDEN 

and  secretly  glowing  in  a  few  of  the  rooms.  Quietly 
guarded,  mysteriously  withdrawn  they  seem,  these 
signs  of  life;  they  reveal  nothing,  they  only  hint 
and  lurk  and  suggest,  holding  the  gaze  of  an  on- 
looker. A  shadow  passes,  a  light  is  quenched — to 
steal  forth  again  in  a  moment  elsewhere,  in  the 
next  room — and  still  it  moves  on,  the  shadow 
follows,  intensely  silent  and  strange. 

What  lights,  what  windows  ?  Suddenly  into  the 
watchful  thought  of  the  onlooker,  with  a  long  thrill, 
fell  the  conviction  of  newness,  of  strangeness.  It 
was  a  house  unknown,  never  seen  before — very 
dimly  to  be  guessed  at,  against  the  massing  of  huge 
trees  in  which  there  was  not  a  tremor  of  sound  or 
movement.  Darkened  rooms,  and  then  a  window- 
space  that  glowed  again,  an  obscure  stirring  of 
somebody,  light  in  hand,  along  the  passages  of  the 
house — it  was  a  portent  of  unexplained  life  that 
was  suddenly  floated  into  the  night,  isolated  from 
the  known  familiar  world.  There  had  been  some 
queer  disconnection,  the  onlooker  had  been  dropped 
without  warning  at  a  particular  spot,  his  eyes  fell 
searchingly  upon  a  scene  entirely  new  to  him — so  it 
appeared.  And  yet  not  quite ;  for  I  am  conscious 
of  the  voice  at  the  back  of  the  mind  which  says 
"  Stand  perfectly  still,  don't  stir,  don't  shift  your 
eyes — or  you  snap  the  spell  "  ;  and  why  that  check, 
if  the  conviction  of  strangeness  were  really  com- 
plete ?  Stand  still,  however,  look  straight,  and  let 
the  scene  have  its  way,  the  miraculous  dark  house 
where  unknown  lives  are  moving  about  their 
business,  stealthily  flitting  from  room  to  room.  Let 
it  be,  let  it  remain  so  as  long  as  it  can ;  drink  deep 

173 


EARLHAM 

of  the  sensation,  wondering,  watching,  questioning 
the  mystery.  Only  keep  as  still  as  the  dead,  and 
the  moment  will  lengthen  and  lengthen  in  the  ahen 
night. 

From  very  far  away  or  from  close  at  hand,  I 
couldn't  tell  which,  comes  a  breathing  fragrance — 
or  indeed  it  was  round  me  all  the  time  perhaps,  it 
was  there  before  I  could  say  it  had  reached  me.  The 
night  was  full  of  it,  a  fragrance  very  light  and  pure 
and  cool,  and  yet  penetrating  with  a  southern 
sweetness  and  richness.  I  remember  well  how  it 
rests  upon  the  windless  night-air  in  long  quiet 
waves ;  you  never  find  it  stealing  round  you  by  day, 
but  it  wakes  at  dusk  and  lingers  upon  the  edges  of 
the  lawn,  beside  the  flower-beds,  till  it  vanishes 
again  with  the  morning.  I  know  it  so  well,  I  should 
so  certainly  expect  it  to  be  there,  that  I  might 
easily  fail  to  regard  it  for  a  while ;  but  once  I  had 
caught — caught  sight  of  it,  I  was  going  to  say,  for 
to  my  fancy  it  has  a  luminous  satin-sheen,  then  it 
would  draw  me  away  to  follow  it,  wherever  I  might 
be.  It  is  the  scent  of  a  flower  that  opens  at  night- 
fall; and  wherever  I  may  be,  that  rare  fragrance 
will  always  carry  me  straight  and  sure  to  the  garden 
in  the  starshine,  the  garden  at  Earlham.  Yes,  the 
moment  of  strangeness,  when  the  house  and  its 
secret  glow  of  life  within  became  suddenly  alien  and 
unknown,  must  pass  with  the  breaking  of  the  spell, 
and  the  spell  cannot  last  when  the  night-flower 
opens  and  pours  out  its  silvery  sweetness.  All  the 
memory  of  Earlham  comes  welling  back  into  my 
thought  again ;  the  strange  house  in  the  night  is  so 
httle  strange  that  I  seem  from  all  time  to  have 

174 


IN   THE   GARDEN 

known  every  corner  of  it.  Earlham  it  is,  with  a  light 
glowing  here  and  there  behind  the  familiar  windows 
— there  the  nursery,  that  one  our  grandmother's 
room,  here  the  Ante-room  Chamber  among  the 
dark  leafage  of  climbing  vines  and  roses.  Could  I 
ever  have  the  sense  of  a  mystery,  an  unknown 
secret  lurking  there  among  the  moving  shadows? 
I  know  them  by  heart,  I  have  known  them  from  all 
time. 

Ah  but  none  the  less  I  have  found  what  I  was 
looking  for ;  it  can  be  found  after  all,  and  not  only 
in  dreams.  It  was  just  a  flash  of  sensation,  not 
more,  but  I  recognized  it  at  once.  Wait  however — 
wait  and  look  nearer  at  the  flower-beds,  which  lie 
in  a  rambling  cluster,  you  remember,  under  the 
lip  of  the  steep  bank  of  grass.  Their  coiling  ser- 
pentine forms  are  all  confused  in  the  darkness, 
but  I  can  easily  thread  the  narrow  grassy  paths 
that  separate  each  from  each.  The  bright  colours 
of  the  geraniums  and  the  salvias  are  veiled  by  night ; 
the  brightest  red  and  blue,  even  the  flaring  orange 
of  the  marigolds,  are  softened  and  obscured  so  that 
you  hardly  notice  them  among  the  deep  grey  of  the 
tufts  and  bushes.  But  wait — the  scent  of  the  night- 
flower  leads  me  on,  where  the  narrow  way  between 
the  beds  goes  turning  and  twisting.  And  there — 
where  this  morning  you  saw  nothing  but  tall  stalks, 
broad  leaves,  drooping  and  discoloured  flower- 
trumpets,  look  now !  Pure  and  cool  and  snow-white 
the  clear  stars  have  opened  with  the  fall  of  the  dusk, 
and  whiter  and  whiter  they  grow  as  the  night 
deepens.  This  is  the  flower  which  sends  that  wave 
of  fragrance  into  the  stillness,  the  flower  that  shines 

^75 


E ARLH AM 

in  the  garden  at  Earlham  from  dusk  to  dawn.  Far 
into  an  August  night,  till  the  first  quiver  of  day- 
break stirs  the  hush  of  the  darkness,  the  white  stars 
hang  motionless  on  their  tall  stalks,  facing  to  the 
sky.  With  the  dayhght  they  droop  and  fall ;  but  in 
August  the  morning  already  delays,  there  are  long 
hours  after  midnight  before  the  polar  clouds  begin 
to  catch  the  advancing  light.  Till  then  the  night- 
ilower  blooms  in  its  white  splendour,  awake  and 
alone. 

And  I  found  what  I  was  looking  for,  most 
strangely,  in  the  moment  of  recall  to  Earlham  by 
the  scent  of  the  flower.  "  I  have  never  been  here 
before,"  I  had  said  to  myself  out  there  on  the  lawn 
— as  one  does,  for  no  reason  at  all,  on  the  spot 
where  one  has  stood  a  thousand  times.  "  What 
shadows  are  those  behind  the  windows?  "  And 
then,  as  the  presence  of  Earlham  returned  with  that 
fragrance,  1  hdid  forgotten — quite  forgotten  that  the 
place  was  dead  and  gone,  that  I  shall  never  see  it 
again,  that  no  day  ever  breaks  there  with  new 
promise,  new  hopes  and  fears.  The  small  sweet 
shock  of  finding  the  house  so  familiar  again  was 
enough ;  it  banished  everything  from  my  thought 
but  the  fresh  and  sharp  delight  of  recognition.  Just 
for  the  flash  of  a  moment  I  felt  that  it  was  the  old 
Earlham,  as  it  used  to  be,  with  still  undiscovered 
experience  before  it — not  this  safe,  secluded,  im- 
mortalized Earlham  that  I  possess  in  memory. 
And  it  was  all  the  stuff  of  a  day-dream — strange 
that  it  should  so  be  possible  to  pile  life  upon  life, 
each  with  its  distinct  and  clear-cut  illusion.  The 
day-dream  of  memory  took  me  to  the  lawn,  in  a 

176 


IN  THE  GARDEN 

night  of  summer  long  years  ago;  and  once  there, 
I  could  be  visited  by  the  illusion  of  strangeness — 
just  as  it  might  have  befallen  me  of  old,  on  such  a 
night;  and  into  that  illusion  there  broke  the 
immediate  sense  of  a  living  Earlham,  where  any- 
thing yet  may  happen — Earlham  as  it  really  was. 
It  shows  how  memory  is  to  be  trusted;  memory 
will  give  one  everything,  will  even  give  one,  at  the 
right  hour,  the  chance  to  forget  the  unnatural 
security  in  which  it  guards  the  past.  An  August 
night,  the  scent  of  a  flower — I  remember  these,  and 
for  a  moment  they  enable  me  to  look  forward  to  a 
morrow,  big  with  uncertainty  as  of  old,  that  begins 
to  dawn  upon  the  garden  at  Earlham,  already 
whitening  the  highest  of  the  high- towering  clouds. 


177  N 


Ill:  OUTSIDE  AND  BEYOND 

I 
THE  river  at  Eariham  was  simply  the  river;  I 
never  thought  of  its  possessing  a  name  upon  the 
county-map.  It  does  possess  one,  however,  and  a 
name  not  undistinguished  among  the  waters  of 
East  Angha — the  river  Yare.  Early  in  its  course  it 
reaches  Eariham;  it  twinkles  over  gravel  and 
water-cress  to  the  brick  archway  of  the  bridge,  turns 
suddenly  black  and  silent  in  the  fishing-pool,  and 
winds  idly  away  through  the  Eariham  meadows,  a 
full-fed  stream,  deep  enough  to  carry  us  in  our 
broad-beamed  old  boat.  Upstream  we  could  not 
penetrate  far ;  we  should  soon  hear  the  floor  of  the 
river  grinding  upon  our  keel.  But  downstream  the 
w^aterway  is  open  to  us  as  far  as  Cringleford  mill — 
quite  as  much  of  a  voyage  as  we  shall  wish  to  cover 
and  re-trace  on  a  fine  hot  morning. 

So  at  last  we  may  dip  down  to  the  sunk  fence 
beyond  the  west  lawn  and  journey  away  towards  the 
water-meadows.  The  park,  gently  falling  to  the 
valley,  had  the  dignity  of  its  fine  trees,  scattered 
and  grouped  here  and  there;  but  when  you  are 
fairly  out  on  the  slope  you  can  hardly  call  it  a  real 
park;  it  is  quite  small,  it  quickly  lapses  into  flat 
green  meadow-land — and  here  is  the  pond.  Rust- 
ling with  rushes,  starred  with  water-lilies  in  the 
open,  the  pond  would  be  sure  to  delay  me ;  it  had 
many  attractions,  the  best  of  them  perhaps  the 
ancient   wiUow-trunk,   rooted   in   the   soft   bank, 

179 


EARLH AM 

which  had  sunk  and  sunk  as  it  leaned  over  the 
water,  till  at  last  it  lay  at  full  length  upon  the 
surface,  with  the  lily-leaves  floating  against  its 
bark.  A  large  and  beautiful  pond  it  certainly  was ; 
it  spread  out  quite  near  the  river,  but  there  was  a 
stretch  of  thick  grass  between  the  two ;  and  so  we 
should  skirt  round  the  pond,  to  reach  the  boat-house 
by  the  thorn  on  the  river-bank.  But  you  cannot 
neglect  the  willow-trunk  on  the  way ;  there  seemed 
always  a  chance  that  if  you  scrambled  and  sprawled 
to  the  end  of  it  you  might  find  that  a  white  water- 
lily  had  unfolded  within  reach  of  a  grabbing  hand. 
It  never  had;  it  was  so  near  that  you  could  see 
the  little  black-beetles  among  its  golden  spikes, 
but  there  was  no  getting  possession  of  it.  What 
should  I  do  with  a  water-lily,  if  I  did  succeed  in 
clutching  the  stalk  ?  I  couldn't  say ;  yet  it  would 
be  a  valuable  prize,  the  thought  of  it  snapping 
juicily  between  my  fingers  is  somehow  alluring. 
And  then  there  are  the  steel-blue  dragon-flies,  dart- 
ing and  glancing,  and  there  is  the  yellow  henbane — 
and  then  there  is  the  deep  shade  of  the  wood  that 
marches  to  the  very  verge  of  the  pond,  at  the 
further  end  of  it.  Remember  this  wood  of  great 
trees ;  I  say  no  more  of  it  for  the  moment,  for  the 
boat-house  on  the  river  is  close  at  hand,  and  we  all 
crowd  thither  and  cluster  about  the  low  doorway. 

Within  there  was  thudding  and  bumping  and 
lurching,  splashes  of  echoing  water,  shafts  of  green 
twilight;  the  boat  swayed  and  smacked  its  lips 
(so  you  might  say)  as  we  bundled  in  and  disposed 
ourselves.  Somebody  stood  in  the  bows  to  unlock 
the  gate ;  and  it  burst  open,  caught  by  the  stream 

i8o 


OUTSIDE  AND   BEYOND 

outside,  and  the  boat  pushed  forth  into  the  blaze  of 
light,  the  water-cool  breezes,  the  clean  smell  of  the 
draggled  weeds.  Light  and  air,  the  silent  movement, 
the  wild  and  nameless  fragrances — they  make  a  pene- 
trating experience.  The  water  talked  beneath  us  as 
the  boat  swung  round  into  the  stream ;  and  immedi- 
ately the  familiar  landscape  was  changed  before  our 
eyes,  the  fields  and  woods  beyond  the  low  banks 
seemed  to  have  drawn  apart  with  a  new  character. 
Committed  to  the  flow  of  the  stream,  one  looks 
back  on  the  green  world  as  though  one  had  left  it ; 
to  float  upon  water  is  as  detaching,  as  liberating  as 
to  soar  in  air.  Those  woods,  that  flat  marshland, 
now  belong  to  another  sphere;  I  survey  it  with 
curiosity,  almost  wishing  to  return  to  it  already,  so 
inviting  it  seems  to  enterprise  and  discovery.  But 
here  meanwhile  is  the  sphere  of  the  water-world, 
with  its  strange  and  lovely  treasures;  trailing  my 
hands  in  its  delicious  chill,  I  can  soon  be  lost  in  the 
landscape  of  the  river-floor. 

Shallow  and  pool,  pool  and  shallow,  the  river 
coiled  its  way  through  the  hollow  land.  Outside 
the  boat-house  the  gravelly  bottom  was  full  in  view, 
only  blurred  a  little  by  the  twist  and  swirl  in  the 
clear  glass  of  the  water.  Do  you  know  that  broad- 
leaved  plant,  bright  green,  translucent,  that  grows 
in  thick  drifts  along  the  bed  of  the  stream,  never 
touching  the  surface  ? — and  the  fine  feathery  thing, 
a  darker  green,  eternally  pulled  by  the  current,  like 
a  thicket  through  which  a  wind  never  ceases  to 
blow? — and  the  stalks  of  the  arrowhead,  that 
climb  to  the  upper  air  and  are  shaken  there  by  a 
constant  Httle  breeze,  it  would  seem,  which  is  not 

i8i 


E ARLH AM 

really  a  breeze  but  the  same  secret  tug  of  the  stream 
below  ? — and  the  perpetual  flitting  of  tiny  shadows 
over  the  gravel  and  sand,  as  the  minnows  dart  from 
under  our  monstrous  hull,  the  leviathan  that  pushes 
among  their  cressy  islets  ?  The  only  sound  in  the 
quiet  valley  was  the  measured  cluck  of  our  clumsy 
old  rowlocks;  the  reedy  pastures  were  deserted, 
there  wasn't  a  house  or  a  cottage  in  sight;  the 
tawny  cows  stood  stock-still,  solemnly  eyeing  us  as 
we  passed.  And  then,  as  we  steered  round  a  swing- 
ing bend  of  the  river,  the  sunlit  floor  had 
disappeared  and  there  was  nothing  but  blackness 
beneath  us,  thick  darkness  of  water  unbroken  by 
reed  or  rush — a  deep  pool,  and  you  could  plunge 
the  oar  down  and  down,  further  and  further  into 
the  bottomless  mud;  and  the  next  moment,  per- 
haps, the  boat  was  almost  scraping  the  clean  gravel 
again,  and  the  smooth  bottle-green  reed-stems  stood 
out  into  the  water  away  from  the  bank ;  and  so  the 
river  went  winding  on  its  leisure^  way,  and  after 
ever  so  long  you  still  saw  the  boat-house  within  easy 
hail,  just  across  the  breadth  of  a  single  meadow. 

There  was  a  reed-bed  that  appeared  very  soon 
on  the  right,  a  patch  of  swamp  covered  densely  with 
those  great  reeds  like  gigantic  blades  of  grass,  each 
with  its  mop  of  pinkish  plume  streaming  in  the 
wind.  A  small  jungle  of  undrained  swamp,  tangled 
with  thorn-bushes — I  take  a  deep  interest  in  it  by 
reason  of  an  unforgettable  passage  in  the  past. 
Mark  the  great  flattened  platform  of  dead  rushes, 
close  to  the  water's  edge,  almost  hidden  by  the 
plumy  reed-forest.  It  is  the  nest  of  a  swan — empty 
now  and  abandoned,  to  be  sure;  but  if  you  had 

182 


OUTSIDE   AND  BEYOND 

come  here  earlier  in  the  year  you  would  have  been 
met  in  mid-stream  by  the  master  of  the  place,  the 
hissing  and  ruffling  swan,  and  you  might  well  have 
thought  twice  before  you  faced  his  challenge.  I, 
let  me  tell  you,  had  faced  it;  but  I  admit  that  I 
had  had  powerful  support.  We  were  not  often  at 
Earlham  in  birds'-nesting  time ;  and  the  thrill  was 
the  keener  when  I  did  get  the  chance,  twice  or 
thrice,  of  an  adventure  among  the  birds  of  the 
swamp  and  the  water-meadow.  For  the  quest  of 
the  swan  I  had  the  company  of  friend  Sidell  the 
butler — the  man  of  nerve,  of  cool  and  masterful 
decision.  He  met  and  confronted  the  passionate 
fowl  with  a  composure  that  disconcerted  it  entirely, 
and  I  followed  him  in  easy  confidence. 

The  swan  breathed  fury,  puffing  out  his  magnifi- 
cent wings ;  and  then  he  was  quite  taken  aback  by 
Sidell' s  assurance,  and  could  only  sail  helplessly  to 
and  fro,  pouting  and  hissing,  while  we  landed  at  the 
nest;  and  somehow  we  must  have  dislodged  his 
mate,  for  I  remember  the  sight  of  the  great  dis- 
coloured eggs,  three  or  four,  that  lay  in  the  high- 
piled  nest.  If  it  should  appear  that  one  of  the  eggs 
was  addled  I  had  leave  to  take  it ;  but  how  are  you 
to  know  whether  an  egg  is  addled  while  the  bird  is 
still  sitting  hopefuUy  on  them  all?  It  is  possible, 
I  held,  to  make  certain  by  shaking  the  eggs  sharply, 
one  by  one;  the  good  egg  gives  no  sound,  the 
ripening  chick  is  firmly  embedded  within;  but  in 
the  bad  you  can  hear  the  slop  and  jumble  of  the 
rotting  contents,  from  which  no  offspring  is  to  be 
expected.  I  applied  the  test  accordingly,  and  one 
of  the  eggs  was  at  any  rate  addled  by  the  time  I  had 

183 


E ARLH AM 

done  with  it.  I  bore  it  off,  and  I  have  not  forgotten 
the  afternoon  that  was  spent  in  draining  the  huge 
malodorous  shell.  So  to  you  I  have  discovered 
(you  recognize  the  quotation)  that  swan's  nest 
among  the  reeds. 


2 

Mrs.  Browning's  poem  is  nearly  all  about  knights 
and  pages  and  prancing  horses ;  I  doubt  if  she  had 
ever  really  seen  the  nest  of  a  swan.  But  I  can  tell 
of  yet  rarer  things,  once  I  am  with  Sidell  among  the 
birds.  We  made  a  marvellous  excursion  one  April 
day  to  a  certain  mere,  a  lake  full  of  swampy  islets, 
to  which  the  black-headed  gulls  return  every  year 
in  their  thousands,  never  learning  better  than  to  lay 
their  eggs  at  the  very  feet  of  the  depredator.  You 
approach  the  lake  by  winding  bowery  lanes;  it  is 
quite  in  the  manner  of  Norfolk  to  mask  its  waters 
about  with  great  trees,  with  long  turnip-slopes,  so 
that  you  may  follow  the  shady  lane  from  village 
to  village  without  detecting  the  hollow  of  secluded 
marshland  that  you  skirt  and  pass  by.  The  mere 
of  the  gulls,  I  seem  to  remember,  thus  lurks  in  the 
midst  of  an  ambling  tree-scattered  country-side; 
and  we  stopped  at  a  gate  in  the  lane  and  turned 
aside  by  a  woodland  path  like  any  other,  which 
gave  no  hint  of  what  we  should  see  in  a  moment. 
So  it  comes  back  to  me;  and  presently  a  sheet  of 
water  opened  before  us,  at  the  edge  of  the  wood, 
and  there  was  the  hidden  haunt  of  the  swarming, 
screaming  birds. 

Their  eggs  are  taken,  and  they  lay  more;  and 

184 


OUTSIDE  AND   BEYOND 

these  are  taken,  and  they  lay  more  again;  and  I 
forget  how  often  the  robbery  is  repeated,  but  it 
stops  just  in  time  to  avoid  discouraging  them 
altogether.  They  think  it  a  fatality  that  must  be 
borne;  with  the  third  or  fourth  nest-full  of  eggs 
they  cheat  their  destiny,  they  rear  a  family,  but 
the  earlier  attempts  are  foredoomed.  Year  after 
year  they  brave  the  curse  that  lies  upon  the  mere ; 
they  scream  and  splutter  over  the  punctual  strokes 
of  fate;  and  yet  they  persevere,  and  they  take 
credit,  I  dare  say,  for  their  cleverness  in  evading  the 
fourth  or  fifth.  The  keeper  of  the  mere  and  his 
minions  pack  the  eggs  into  boxes  and  despatch  them 
to  those  who  know  what  is  good  to  eat  in  April. 
When  we  reached  the  lake-side  the  gulls  were  crying 
out  for  the  ten-millionth  time  that  such  things 
ought  not  to  be  allowed.  We  found  a  boat,  and  we 
rowed  across  the  open  water  to  an  island  trodden 
and  littered  by  many  generations  of  the  long- 
suffering  birds ;  they  were  all  about  us,  with  their 
bright  eyes  and  their  flashing  wings  and  their  decent 
little  brown  spring-hoods.  The  day's  robbery  had 
been  achieved;  but  here  and  there  a  spotted  egg, 
green  and  brown  and  black,  might  be  found  on  the 
bare  spongy  floor;  and  perhaps  it  was  the  first 
time  I  had  ever  known  the  joy  of  a  bird-haunted 
marsh  in  breeding- time.  With  the  birds  that  flutter 
and  chirp,  that  hop  on  lawns  and  whisk  among  the 
bushes  and  patter  through  the  dead  leaves — with 
these  I  was  familiar,  but  not  with  the  birds  that 
flap  and  scream,  that  paddle  jerkily  into  the  cover 
of  the  reeds  and  stamp  the  mud-bank  with  their 
neat  triangular  footprints.     So  this  was  always  a 

185 


E ARLH AM 

famous  day,  the  first  day  among  the  gulls  and  the 
dabchicks  and  the  coots  of  the  mere. 

And  as  soon  as  I  speak  of  it  I  am  caught  by  the 
memory  of  another  and  later  day,  and  another 
blue-green  forest  of  rustling  reeds ;  and  I  remember 
how,  in  a  very  small  fiat-bottomed  boat,  one  might 
cautiously  push  along  the  narrow  water-way  that 
twisted  and  turned,  deep  among  the  great  feathery 
stalks — cautiously,  silently,  with  ear  and  eye 
strained  and  alert.  These  other  solitudes,  more 
remote  than  the  mere  of  the  gulls,  were  haunted  by 
certain  charming  and  distinguished  little  creatures, 
for  whom  I  was  ready  to  wait  and  watch  by  the 
hour.  It  was  late  in  the  summer,  and  there  was 
very  little  stirring  of  life  around  the  boat — scarcely 
more  than  the  shuffle  and  flap,  here  and  there,  of  a 
startled  moor-hen;  nesting-tim^  was  over,  the 
population  of  the  reeds  had  fallen  shy  and  silent. 
But  not  entirely  silent,  it  seemed — for  I  heard  a 
note,  near  and  far,  that  was  like  the  striking  of  a 
very  small  silver  gong,  a  note  I  had  never  heard 
before.  It  was  enough  to  set  one's  eye  travelling 
keenly  among  the  forest  of  the  stalks;  the  clear 
note  was  uttered  on  this  side,  near  at  hand,  and 
then  it  seemed  to  be  far  ahead  of  me,  close  behind 
me;  and  again  and  again  I  had  surely  been  just 
too  slow,  had  barely  missed  the  flit  of  a  wing  across 
the  open  water-way.  And  then  at  last,  quietly 
rounding  a  corner,  I  saw  them  full,  a  pair  of  them — 
they  gleamed  and  passed  and  disappeared  among 
the  rushes.  Shining,  straw-golden  little  birds  they 
were,  carrying  long  wedge-shaped  tails  behind  them ; 
they  were  bearded-tits,  and  through  the  hours  of  the 

i86 


OUTSIDE  AND   BEYOND 

afternoon  I  saw  not  a  few  of  them,  and  the  tiny 
clang  of  their  call-note  was  constantly  about  me. 
The  flight  of  time  is  forgotten  when  I  have  seen 
and  heard  the  bearded-tit ;  I  can  attend  to  nothing 
else,  I  follow  the  gleaming  bird  further  and  further 
into  the  midst  of  the  mere. 

3 

But  I  am  concerned  with  the  river  at  Earlham, 

where  it  wound  through  the  water-meadows;  and 
after  passing  the  thicket  of  the  swan's  nest  one 
should  begin  to  notice  carefully  the  long  wood  of 
great  trees  that  accompanies  our  journey.  It  strides 
down  the  valley,  on  the  left  hand,  a  hundred  yards 
or  so  from  the  river ;  it  is  still  the  wood  I  spoke  of 
just  now,  the  wood  that  shadowed  one  end  of  the 
lilied  pond.  It  is  the  heronry ;  and  in  those  branch- 
ing tree-tops  you  may  see  the  dark  piles  of  the  nests 
to  which  the  herons  return  in  the  spring.  It  was  a 
dwindling  colony,  I  fear ;  we  could  not  count  more 
than  a  dozen  nests,  perhaps;  and  in  August  of 
course  they  were  all  deserted — we  rarely  had  the 
luck  of  surprising  a  heron  by  the  water-side  and  of 
watching  its  lordly  voyage  down  the  sky.  But  it 
was  truly  a  heronry,  that  wood — I  hope  it  is  still ; 
and  we  knew  no  other,  and  we  felt  it  to  rank  among 
the  proudest  of  the  glories  of  Earlham. 

The  wood  marched  on  down  the  valley,  never  far 
from  the  river;  it  was  a  dense  and  tangled  forest, 
long  and  narrow,  and  it  was  crossed  in  the  middle 
by  a  cart-track  that  went  tunnelling  through  the 
leafage.  The  cart-track  divided  the  kingdom  of  the 
herons  from  that  of  the  rooks;  they  scrupulously 

187 


EARLHAM 

respected  each  other's  domain.  Very  soon,  as  our 
boat  pushed  forward,  the  rooks  were  wheehng  and 
braying  their  loudest  overhead.  The  sky  was  full 
of  flapping  wings,  those  foolish  up-curved,  open- 
quilled  wings  that  seem  so  badly  designed  for  riding 
the  air.  The  voices  of  the  rooks  awoke  the  valley — 
for  all  this  time  there  has  been  no  sight  of  a  human 
being,  there  never  was,  in  these  solitary  pastures; 
it  was  only  our  lumbering  boat,  so  it  seemed,  that 
ever  disturbed  their  peace.  We  drifted  down  and 
down  between  the  low  banks;  and  presently  the 
wood  of  the  rooks  ended  abruptly,  and  to  right  and 
left  we  could  see  the  expanse  of  the  shallow  valley, 
between  the  mild  slopes  and  swellings  that  in 
Norfolk  are  counted  as  hills.  From  our  low  level, 
looking  across  the  water-meadows,  we  could  dis- 
cover no  break  in  the  green  flats  of  the  pasture; 
only  here  and  there  an  isolated  wooden  gate,  with 
nothing  on  either  side  of  it,  stood  up  oddly  in  the 
midst  of  the  grass — betraying,  you  see,  the  lie  of 
the  hidden  dykes  that  separated  field  from  field. 
The  gate  marks  the  spot  where  the  dyke  is  crossed 
by  a  culvert  or  a  bridge  of  wooden  planking ;  and 
I  dare  say  the  thought  of  the  dykes,  big  and  little, 
full  of  reeds  and  frogs  and  various  treasure,  may 
bring  our  boat  to  a  standstill,  and  we  may  dis- 
embark for  an  oozy,  juicy  scramble  among  the 
henbane  and  bog-beans  and  forget-me-not. 

But  our  voyage  was  far  from  its  end.  On  and  on 
we  went,  past  the  pollard-willows,  past  the  two 
skeleton  windmills  that  pumped  the  river-water,  I 
suppose,  up  the  swelling  hill  towards  Eaton — and 
soon  the  stream  became  rapidly  deeper,  and  houses 

i88 


OUTSIDE  AND  BEYOND 

appeared,  clustered  about  with  trees,  and  a  bright 
trim  garden  or  two  descended  to  the  river-bank. 
Cringleford  (pleasing  name)  was  in  sight ;  we  floated 
upon  a  deep  pool  that  even  in  the  blaze  of  noon 
you  might  feel  to  be  treacherous  and  sinister.  For 
look  ahead,  see  the  picturesque  building  that 
straggles  across  the  river  and  blocks  the  way,  note 
where  the  river  disappears  beneath  it.  That  is 
Cringleford  mill;  it  opens  a  dark  jaw  and  swallows 
up  the  stream — quite  quietly,  without  a  sign  of 
warning ;  and  we  are  well  aware  that  it  is  a  place 
of  extreme  peril.  I  think  we  must  have  read  or 
heard  of  a  "  mill-race,"  how  it  snatches  the  unwary, 
draws  them  in  and  destroys  them  in  the  darkness, 
where  the  great  wheel  hungrily  pounds  and  grunts. 
And  though  the  pool  of  Cringleford  seemed  so 
peaceful,  so  innocently  dreamful  in  the  sun,  we  had 
no  doubt  that  danger  lurked;  we  floated  watch- 
fully, with  a  cautious  eye  for  that  wide  and  evil 
slit  of  a  mouth  in  the  distance,  opening  with  a  black 
grin  upon  the  verge  of  the  water.  Nearer  we 
ventured,  a  little  nearer — but  then  it  was  time  to 
remember  our  return-voyage,  the  long  pull  up- 
stream that  still  awaited  us. 

The  Yare  seems  a  leisurely  current  till  you  begin 
to  breast  it  in  a  heavy  old  boat  under  a  high  sun. 
It  starts  into  activity  then,  I  can  assure  you ;  the 
oar  that  you  have  gaily  plied  in  the  descent  becomes 
hostile  and  hateful,  the  boat  a  leaden  tub ;  now  is 
the  time  for  your  elders  to  exert  themselves,  while 
you  recline  with  dignity  in  the  stern  and  handle  the 
rudder-strings.  I  like  to  be  free  to  watch  the  shift- 
ing landscape,  I  like  the  responsibility  of  steering 

189 


EARLHAM 

our  course ;  there  is  something  noble  and  serene  in 
the  attitude  of  the  helmsman,  surveying  the  effort 
of  the  crew,  which  appeals  to  me  more  keenly  than 
I  should  care  to  admit.  I  cannot  be  surprised  if  my 
manner  betrays  a  natural  authority,  as  I  lean 
negligently  back  in  my  place,  drinking  in  the 
familiar  scene,  and  pull  the  alternate  strings  that 
send  us  sweeping  round  the  bends  of  the  river. 
A  royal  passage  upstream,  while  the  slaves  bend 
to  the  oars — and  quicker  than  you  could  believe 
possible  the  nose  of  the  boat  darts  at  the  bank, 
rams  itself  firmly  into  a  slush  of  mud,  and  the 
helmsman  is  exposed  to  the  free-spoken  jeers  of  the 
crew. 

The  shady  bank,  however,  of  the  reach  just  below 
the  little  windmills  has  associations  that  make  me 
forget  my  discomfiture.  Here  were  fine  old  willow- 
trunks,  branching  thickly,  and  they  bring  a  picture 
of  memory  to  the  light.  It  was  just  the  place  for  a 
picnic — it  had  been  tried  and  proved  more  than 
once.  Not  at  this  time  of  day,  not  at  high  noon, 
but  towards  tea-time  we  had  more  than  once 
landed  by  the  willows  with  hamper  and  kettle; 
those  were  days  that  stood  out  in  remembrance  for 
many  reasons.  And  one  of  the  reasons  seems  to 
have  been  that  exactly  on  those  afternoons,  those 
only,  the  golden  weather  was  chilled  and  clouded ; 
the  sun  always  blazed  at  Earlham,  surely,  save 
when  we  landed  with  uncles  and  cousins  on  the 
river-bank,  far  from  home,  and  prepared  to  collect 
sticks,  build  a  fire  and  boil  our  kettle.  Then  the 
clouds  gathered,  rain  threatened,  wind  whistled — 
the  scene  is  vividly  before  me.     People  looked 

190 


OUTSIDE  AND  BEYOND 

doubtfully  at  the  sky  and  the  grass,  spread  mackin- 
toshes, huddled  and  shivered;  but  the  children 
were  not  discouraged,  for  that  was  the  way  of  an 
Earlham  picnic,  one  would  not  wish  to  improve 
upon  it.  The  centre  of  the  scene  is  one  of  our 
uncles,  crouching  on  hands  and  knees  over  a  fire 
that  he  tends  and  coaxes,  screening  it  from  the  gust 
with  a  wall  of  tilted  umbrellas  round  which  he  peers 
with  whimsical  looks ;  the  children  hover  about  and 
gaze  at  him  with  sudden  chuckles. 

Rain  and  wind  mattered  nothing  to  us — we  had 
our  picnic.  The  joy  of  it  was  twofold.  In  the  first 
place  it  was  traditional;  regularly,  on  our  return 
to  Earlham,  the  question  of  a  water-picnic  appeared 
among  our  schemes,  fitting  into  its  turn  like  a  piece 
of  ritual ;  so  it  always  was,  so  it  ever  should  be — 
these  children  were  resolute  precisians  in  such  a 
matter.  And  then  there  was  another  savour  in  a 
picnic ;  and  I  am  almost  shy  of  returning  yet  again 
to  the  romance  of  an  eight-year-old  appetite,  but 
how  can  I  forget  the  brilliance  of  the  eating  in  those 
conditions?  A  bun  or  a  sandwich  on  its  plate  at 
nursery-tea  is  admirable ;  but  wrap  it  up  in  white 
paper,  make  a  neat  parcel  of  it,  carry  it  off  with  you 
for  a  long  afternoon,  and  finally  consume  it  in  a 
boat  or  on  a  river-bank — poetry  has  passed  into  it 
by  that  time,  and  to  a  child  it  is  a  fact  that  poetry 
tastes.  Transubstantiation,  to  a  child,  is  no  mere 
venture  of  faith ;  it  is  a  matter  established  by  the 
senses,  like  any  other ;  and  though  I  cannot  verify 
it  now,  I  perfectly  recall  the  new  flavour  of  the 
sandwich  that  has  been  spiced  and  seasoned  by 
new  surroundings.     And  even  more  potent  in  its 

191 


EARLHAM 

influence  than  a  boat  and  a  river  is  a  railway-train, 
a  crowded  compartment  in  which  a  hamper  is 
unpacked  and  small  parcels  in  butter-stained  white 
paper  are  handed  round — lunch  in  the  train,  one  of 
the  richest  of  all  the  incidents  in  the  long  ecstasy  of 
the  journey  to  Earlham.  You  know  how  it  happens ; 
one  climbs  into  the  corner  by  the  window  to  watch 
the  racing  trees  and  telegraph-poles,  and  the  hours 
loiter,  and  the  elders  of  the  party  sit  mutely  nursing 
their  headaches  (you  remember  their  train  head- 
aches), and  there  is  a  fragrance  of  eau-de-cologne,  of 
morocco  travelling-bags,  of  begrimed  upholstery; 
and  at  last,  at  last  it  is  time  to  open  the  hamper,  to 
unpack  the  sandwiches;  and  for  my  part  I  feel  I 
could  munch  my  way  through  them  for  an  hour,  and 
then  be  ready  to  begin  all  over  again.  I  have  fed 
on  poetry ;  and  I  am  glad  to  think  I  made  such  use 
of  the  opportunity  that  the  flavour  is  distinct  to  me 
after  many  years. 

As  for  the  voyage  upstream  in  the  beating  sun- 
shine, the  later  stages  are  blurred  with  a  luxury  of 
somnolence ;  it  is  clear  that  I  have  relinquished  the 
rudder ;  I  keep  no  count  of  the  twists  of  the  river, 
I  lose  myself  in  the  rhythmical  cluck  and  splash  of 
the  oars.  On  and  on,  cluck  and  splash — and  at 
length  we  are  wheeling  and  lurching  into  the  cool 
shadow  of  the  boat-house  again ;  and  now  comes  the 
endless  toil  of  the  walk  up  the  park,  an  almost 
impossible  anti-climax  to  our  adventure.  Up  there 
among  the  trees  are  the  gables  and  chimneys  of 
home ;  but  the  slope  of  the  park  seems  to  refuse  to 
grow  less,  as  one  trudges  and  stumbles  among  the 
scorched  tussocks  of  the  grass.    But  suppose  that 

192 


OUTSIDE  AND   BEYOND 

one  clings  to  an  ever-companionable  arm,  demand- 
ing one  of  those  strange  and  beautiful  stories  of 
which  I  have  spoken  already — why  not  indeed,  for 
the  thirtieth  time,  the  story  of  the  tapioca-pudding 
and  its  burial  in  the  shrubbery  ?  It  is  well ;  time 
and  space  are  obliterated  while  the  drama  gathers 
and  breaks;  we  find  ourselves  in  the  shade  of  the 
west  lawn  just  as  the  bell  peals  out  to  call  us  indoors 
— five  minutes  before  luncheon-time. 

4 
Except  to  the  river  we  should  not  very  often 

travel  beyond  the  garden — partly  because  the 
garden  was  eventful  enough  for  a  life-time,  partly 
because  adventure  could  not  be  improvised,  ex- 
temporized, in  the  outer  world.  To  penetrate  there 
was  a  matter  of  plans  and  public  arrangements; 
our  elders  must  co-operate,  and  they  may  be  willing 
and  sympathetic,  but  their  interest  in  a  project  puts 
it  at  once  among  formal,  discussible  things,  whereas 
the  peculiar  charm  of  a  private  enterprise  is  that  it 
needs  no  explanation.  None  the  less  we  should 
welcome  the  prospect  of  an  afternoon  in  Norwich 
with  our  grandmother;  when  she  drives  "in," 
carrying  us  with  her,  we  are  very  ready  to  bring  the 
fine  old  city  into  our  game,  so  to  speak,  to  include  it 
in  the  life  and  legend  of  Earlham. 

As  I  think  of  Norwich  I  remember  first  how  the 
carriage-horses  seemed  to  fill  the  narrow  channel  of 
London  Street,  how  their  hooves  pounded  and 
echoed  on  the  wooden  pavement,  how  Patrick  the 
coachman,  from  his  height,  steered  them  with  easy 
supremacy  through  the  jostle  of  smaller  traffic. 

193  o 


EARLH AM 

The  shops  of  London  Street  were  very  brilHant,  and 
we  stopped  here  and  there,  and  Patrick  beckoned 
with  a  flourish  of  his  whip  to  the  salesman  within, 
who  issued  with  friendly  smiles  to  confer  with  our 
grandmother,  taking  his  place  at  once  thereby,  to 
my  sense,  in  the  family  party  of  Earlham.  There 
were  friends  everywhere  to  greet  us,  and  the  horses 
twisted  their  way  without  hesitation  round  the 
sharp  turns,  swept  up  and  down  the  scooping  slopes 
and  pitches  of  the  old  streets.  The  heart  of  Nor- 
wich, in  the  region  about  the  market-place,  has  a 
very  distinguished  air.  It  impressed  me  with  the 
dignity  and  the  grand  style  of  a  capital  city,  much 
more  of  a  city  and  a  capital  than  London  itself, 
which  was  merely  a  chance  aggregation  of  streets. 
Norwich  had  a  personal,  self-conscious  look,  aware 
of  its  own  being;  it  was  from  Norwich,  not  from 
London,  that  one  could  learn  to  think  of  a  city  as  a 
body  of  life  and  character.  By  the  time  our 
carriage  had  threaded  a  dozen  narrow  ways  and 
worked  up  the  hill  to  St.  Stephen's,  to  St.  Peter's, 
I  was  filled  with  pride  in  the  familiar  and  kindly 
bond  that  united  us  to  such  a  memorable  friend. 

St.  Peter's  Mancroft — it  is  a  good  civic  church, 
standing  very  stately  above  the  market-place ;  one 
might  catch  sight  of  its  dominating  tower  and  spire 
at  many  points  of  our  course.  And  its  odd  old 
name  made  one  begin  to  peer  and  watch  for  the 
perpetual  church-towers  of  the  Norwich  street- 
corners  and  to  demand  their  names  too — in  half 
an  hour  one  may  collect  a  curious  store.  Our 
grandmother  knew  them  all ;  no  tower  or  street  of 
Norwich,  I  suppose,  was  without  its  quick  associa- 

194 


OUTSIDE  AND  BEYOND 

tions  for  her.  She  named  the  churches,  and  already 
in  very  early  days  I  had  them  by  heart :  St.  Michael- 
at-Plea,  St.  Michael-at-Thorn,  St.  Martin-at-Oak, 
St.  Miles  Coslany,  a  lengthening  catalogue  of  pic- 
turesque titles  that  stirred  the  imagination  with 
many  thrills.  Churches,  timbered  houses,  the 
ancient  guildhall  of  black  flint,  they  all  crowded 
upon  us  with  romance ;  sitting  on  the  small  back- 
seat of  the  carriage,  facing  our  grandmother,  I 
should  crane  half-bewildered  from  side  to  side, 
fearful  of  missing  a  single  glimpse  of  these  wonders. 
If  I  try  to  discern  exactly  what  they  can  have 
meant  to  an  excited  child,  with  no  knowledge 
whatever  of  their  historic  life,  I  certainly  see  nothing 
but  a  blank.  Our  dear  grandmother,  familiarly 
as  she  moved  through  the  city,  had  no  improving 
information  to  offer  us ;  she  was  quite  as  innocent 
of  facts  and  dates  as  I  was  myself.  But  that  was 
fortunate ;  all  we  needed  was  the  beautiful  names, 
anything  more  would  have  oppressed  our  fancy; 
and  really  I  think  I  principally  enjoyed,  not  the 
presence  of  the  past,  but  the  grand  sense  that  in  the 
midst  of  this  antiquity  we  were  quite  at  home  and 
at  our  ease — the  sense  that  the  city  with  all  its  pride 
was  for  us  but  an  appanage  of  Earlham.  When  I 
remembered  this,  I  did  my  best  to  look  benevolent, 
superior,  careless ;  it  was  all  a  very  old  story  to  me, 
I  implied,  but  it  was  pleasant  to  cast  a  glance  upon 
it  in  passing,  to  throw  a  wave  of  the  hand  to  the 
well-known  scene.  And  I  was  conscious  indeed  of 
the  difficulty  of  reconciUng  this  attitude  with  the 
ingenuous  eagerness  that  set  me  bouncing  to  and 
fro  on  the  back-seat,  as  we  rattled  through  the  open 

195 


E ARLH AM 

spaces  of  the  cattle-market  and  beheld  the  immense 
Norman  keep  of  the  Castle  on  its  mound. 

But  it  was  when  we  descended  to  the  lower  parts 
of  the  city,  towards  Tombland  and  the  cathedral, 
that  the  charm  of  intimacy  was  at  its  best.  Oddly 
enough — or  naturally  enough,  I  dare  say — I  could 
not  take  the  faintest  interest  in  the  cathedral  for  its 
own  sake ;  I  remember  standing  at  the  west  door, 
gaping  up  at  the  bossed  tracery  of  the  vault,  with  a 
mind  emptied  of  all  activity,  struck  limp  and  lifeless 
by  a  spectacle  too  big  for  it.  I  could  do  nothing 
with  the  cathedral  as  an  object  of  beauty  and 
interest ;  it  soared  above  me,  swooped  and  bore  me 
down.  But  when  I  turned  away  and  strolled  with 
grandmother  through  the  Close,  and  she  pointed 
out  the  home  of  her  childhood,  spoke  of  the  bishop's 
palace  and  the  deanery,  led  me  to  the  old  ferry  and 
the  grey  bits  of  ruinous  wall  and  archway  by  the 
river — when  the  towering  cathedral,  there  behind 
us,  became  part  of  her  story,  part  of  daily  Ufe  and 
familiar  habit — then  indeed  I  took  possession  of  it 
with  perfect  assurance.  I  could  include  it,  I  could 
embrace  and  patronize  the  good  old  cathedral, 
when  it  was  thus  pulled  into  the  pattern — the 
pattern  of  Earlham,  as  I  keep  on  discovering  it. 
I  stepped  out  beside  the  daughter  of  the  Close,  to 
whom  the  overwhelming  great  church  was  a  fact 
as  simple  and  homely  as  Sunday  morning,  quite 
prepared  to  master  all  the  vastness  of  antiquity  in 
that  fashion.  And  I  now  see  that  just  in  that  way 
and  no  other  a  child  could  handle  and  use  the 
impression  of  ancient  beauty;  our  grandmother 
glanced  at  it  affectionately,  as  though  at  a  faithful 

196 


OUTSIDE  AND  BEYOND 

companion,  and  I  at  her  side  was  delighted  to  do 
the  same.  We  neither  of  us  distracted  ourselves  by 
trying  to  understand  it. 

"  This  is  Pull  Ferry,"  she  said,  when  we  reached 
the  river-bank  at  the  lower  end  of  the  Close.  There 
it  was,  I  suppose,  that  the  barges  were  towed  and 
moored,  laden  with  the  stone  that  built  the  cathe- 
dral and  the  monastery ;  there  was  the  quay  where 
the  monks  of  the  priory  received  and  landed  their 
supplies.  Of  all  that  I  had  no  notion  at  all,  not  even 
enough  to  make  me  wonder  and  ask  questions  about 
the  grey  old  gateway  and  broken  tower.  We  stood 
and  looked  for  a  minute,  and  then  we  turned  back 
into  the  Close,  and  grandmother  had  a  message  to 
leave  or  an  enquiry  to  make  at  the  house  of  a  canon ; 
and  as  if  it  had  happened  this  morning  I  remember 
how  the  charm  of  the  place  suddenly  flowered  out  all 
round  me  while  I  waited,  moving  me  to  unspeakable 
tenderness.  What  I  liked  about  it  was  not  in  the 
least  its  beauty,  but  simply  the  fact  that  it  was 
mine,  and  had  been  mine  for  so  long.  I  had  never 
seen  it  five  minutes  before;  but  grandmother's 
tone,  when  she  spoke  of  it,  was  full  of  a  hfelong 
intimacy  that  I  could  share  on  the  spot. 

5 

There  was  plenty  of  business  to  transact  in 

Norwich  before  we  were  ready  to  return  home.  It 
was  necessary  first  to  drive  round  by  the  fish- 
market;  there  we  seemed  always  to  be  expected, 
and  as  soon  as  the  carriage  paused  an  aproned 
young  man  darted  forth  with  a  bundle  or  basket, 
discreetly  packed,  and  bestowed  it  under  the  coach- 

197 


EARLHAM 

man's  box.  That  was  the  fish  for  dinner;  and 
Patrick,  it  was  probable,  had  many  other  commis- 
sions entrusted  to  him  by  Mrs.  Chapman,  and 
gradually  the  carriage  was  stored  with  various  goods. 
Moreover  we  had  started  from  Earlham,  I  need  not 
say,  with  the  usual  assortment  of  packages  and  jars 
and  baskets  under  all  the  seats,  and  for  anything 
that  we  took  in  there  was  something  no  less  sub- 
stantial to  give  out.  Our  course  took  us  hither  and 
thither  among  the  outlying  streets  of  the  city ;  we 
learned  to  know  a  good  many  of  the  doors  at  which 
we  habitually  stopped.  Our  grandmother's  circle 
of  friends  was  very  large,  and  there  was  an 
attractive  parcel,  likely  enough,  for  all  the  poor 
things  and  the  good  souls  in  turn. 

I  pause  in  remembrance  before  a  door  that  we 
seem  to  have  frequented  regularly  for  many  years. 
It  was  in  a  prim  street  of  tiny  houses,  not  unsightly ; 
and  here  we  all  got  out  of  the  carriage  and  went  in 
to  call  upon  Mrs.  Cook.  We  climbed  to  her  bed- 
room— for  there  she  lay  helpless,  year  by  year, 
always  greeting  us  with  the  same  dreadful,  high- 
pillowed,  gaunt  fascination.  She  lay  there  like  a 
wild  old  witch,  beaten  and  brought  low,  but  surely 
still  capable  in  her  imprisonment  of  a  stealthy  spell 
or  so  if  she  had  the  mind.  That  was  how  this 
amiable,  humble,  grateful  old  person  (as  I  suppose 
she  was)  struck  a  child ;  it  was  impossible  to  believe 
that  her  cries  and  chirrups  of  delight  at  our  appear- 
ance had  no  sinister  meaning.  So  we  stood  by  her 
bed  and  stared  at  her,  appalled  and  attracted, 
while  grandmother  explained  us  to  her,  named  and 
placed  us  in  a  family  whose  ramification  she  followed 

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OUTSIDE  AND  BEYOND 

with  faithful  interest.  She  didn't  remember  us  very 
well  from  visit  to  visit ;  and  I  never  forgot  that  one 
of  our  uncles  (the  wickedest)  had  once  taken  a 
perfect  stranger  to  see  her  and  had  introduced  him 
to  her  as  one  of  ourselves — to  her  intense  satisfac- 
tion, for  she  declared  she  would  have  known  the 
gentleman  anj^where  for  his  likeness  to  the  rest  of  us. 
Was  that  a  cruel  fraud  to  practise  on  the  poor  soul, 
or  a  kindness  to  offer  her? — I  had.  heard  the 
question  debated,  and  I  remembered  our  grand- 
mother's "  Don't,  dear — don't!  " — unwilling  to  be 
amused,  while  she  smiled  at  a  story  that  lost 
nothing  in  our  uncle's  telling.  It  added  another 
note  of  curiosity  to  the  sight  of  Mrs.  Cook. 
^'^But  what  I  chiefly  notice,  as  I  recall  how  grand- 
mother greeted  and  talked  to  her,  is  something 
not  at  all  easily  to  be  described.  It  is  the  attitude 
of  the  charming  and  tender  and  bountiful  visitor 
towards  the  sad  old  wreck  who  lay  there  on  the 
pillow  and  mumbled  her  gratitude  and  folded  her 
skinny  fingers  round  the  kind  hand.  A  child,  of 
course,  had  no  notion  how  our  grandmother's  genius 
was  revealed  at  such  a  moment;  but  from  this 
distance  of  time  I  see  it  fill  the  room  with  a  wonder- 
ful radiation.  And  I  can't,  when  I  try  to  speak  of  it, 
tell  where  to  begin ;  for  the  whole  of  her  nature  was 
warmth  and  quickness  and  light,  and  there  were  no 
qualities,  no  virtues  in  it  that  were  not  all-per- 
vasive, liberated,  transmuted  into  spirit  and  flame. 
When  they  are  withdrawn  and  defined  they  seem 
no  longer  like  her — no  more  than  a  handful  of  salt 
is  like  the  blue  suffusion  of  the  fire  into  which  it  is 
thrown.    To  describe  a  character  like  this,  naming 

199 


EARLH AM 

its  qualities  one  by  one,  gives  it  far  too  much  of  an 
air  of  deliberation,  of  formal  structure,  as  though 
it  were  composed  and  compacted  of  different 
materials  laid  together.  Her  manner  of  being  was 
as  little  of  that  kind  as  could  be;  it  escapes  the 
words  that  would  close  upon  it. 

Let  me  say  at  least  that  she  possessed,  mingled 
with  the  utter  simplicity  of  her  charity,  a  pretty 
strain  of  stateliness,  of  worldliness — which  kept  Mrs. 
Cook  in  her  place,  not  a  doubt  of  it,  even  while  they 
spoke  together  and  smiled  and  prayed  in  the  light 
of  a  love  where  none  was  afore  or  after  other.  Our 
grandmother,  tending  her  suffering  friends,  moved 
among  them  entirely  as  one  who  serves — absolutely 
forgetful  of  herself,  lost  in  the  instant  free  flow  of 
her  sympathy ;  she  forgot,  for  she  had  no  need  to 
remember,  the  distinctions  that  here  and  now,  in  the 
world  as  it  is  made  (and  providentially,  unquestion- 
ably made),  have  the  meaning  and  the  force  that  we 
recognize,  whatever  we  think  of  them.  She  had 
no  need  to  remember  these  things  because  she  did 
not  question  them ;  it  is  we,  the  rest  of  us,  asking 
why  Mrs.  Cook  should  lie  bed-ridden  in  a  dull  street 
and  a  frowzy  little  room — it  is  we  who  cannot  meet 
her  as  an  equal  and  a  sister,  cannot  serve  her 
simply,  cannot  feel  at  home  among  her  dingy  rehcs 
and  imitations  of  gentility.  Who  are  we,  and  what 
is  Mrs.  Cook? — we  don't  know,  and  we  know  we 
don't  know,  and  the  unanswered  questions  visibly 
plague  us ;  Mrs.  Cook  herself  is  only  too  well  aware 
of  the  fidget  of  their  presence,  and  the  end  of  it  is 
that  we  go  away  without  having  been  with  her, 
really  and  comfortably  with  her,  for  a  moment  of 

200 


OUTSIDE  AND  BEYOND 

our  visit.  But  look  at  Mrs.  Cook  when  our  grand- 
mother enters  the  Uttle  room  with  radiance,  with 
gaiety  in  her  voice,  with  that  sweet  trembhng  harp- 
note  of  tenderness  in  her  greeting — it  is  a  christian 
soul  that  meets  another,  without  the  semblance  of  a 
barrier  between  them;  no  doubts  or  delicacies  or 
compunctions  divide  them,  they  join  hands  in 
perfect  understanding.  And  yet  it  is  as  clear  and 
natural  as  day  to  both  of  them  that  in  the  world 
they  are  far  apart ;  and  here,  where  they  meet,  one 
of  them  brings  sympathy  and  bounty,  the  other 
gives  gratitude,  and  the  disparity  of  the  exchange 
never  troubles  them  in  the  least.  It  is  part  of  the 
order  of  things,  and  they  can  disregard  it  as  easily 
as  we  allow  for  the  daily  cataclysm  of  sunset  and 
nightfall.  Suppose  that  every  evening,  with  the 
closing-in  of  the  dark,  we  should  blame  the  mon- 
strosity of  allowing  the  sun  to  sink;  that  would 
seem  to  Mrs.  Cook  quite  as  reasonable  as  to  ask  why 
in  the  world  she  should  lie  there  in  her  old  flannel 
bed-gown,  staring  at  the  cheap  wall-paper  a  few 
feet  away  from  her,  while  we  drive  home  through 
the  radiant  afternoon  to  Earlham. 

And  our  grandmother — she  could  suffer  in  all  her 
vibrating  heart  with  the  sufferings  of  the  poor  and 
the  forlorn,  the  woes  of  the  world  in  distress  were 
her  own ;  but  it  was  no  part  of  her  thought  that  in 
comforting  and  succouring  the  poor,  who  are  always 
with  us,  we  should  begin  to  be  sceptical  or  ironical 
about  the  distinction  between  Earlham  and  the 
humble  abode  of  Mrs.  Cook.  She  believed  in  the 
distinction,  took  it  as  real  and  lasting;  no  words 
were  needed,  but  without  words  she  made  it  un- 

201 


E ARLH AM 

mistakable  that  everybody  had  his  due  station  and 
degree.  In  that  degree  he  might  be  miserable  and 
destitute,  and  then  the  more  fortunate  had  the  duty 
and  the  joy  of  hastening  to  his  rescue;  still  his 
degree  remained,  and  theirs  too,  and  nothing  in  the 
sincerity  of  Christian  fellowship  would  lead  to 
obliterating  the  difference.  See  her,  for  example, 
when  half-way  home,  on  the  high-road,  she  suddenly 
calls  to  the  coachman  and  stops  the  carriage — a 
tired  woman  with  a  baby  is  trailing  on  foot  in  the 
dust,  and  we  can  give  her  a  lift  on  the  way.  "  Jump 
in,"  cries  grandmother,  smiling  and  beckoning ;  and 
she  makes  room  beside  her,  and  the  woman's  slight 
surprise  and  confusion  quickly  disappear  in  easy 
talk  about  her  journey,  her  home,  her  ailing  child. 
I  can  clearly  see  her  anxious,  strained  face  as  she 
responds,  more  and  more  readily;  and  before  we 
reach  home  and  it  is  time  for  her  to  set  off  on  her 
tramp  again,  grandmother  will  doubtless  have 
contrived  some  means  of  solidly  and  sympathetic- 
ally helping  her,  and  the  woman  goes  on  with  the 
knowledge  that  she  has  made  a  friend.  And  in  the 
whole  transaction  our  grandmother  has  the  fine 
style,  the  serene  gesture  of  a  princess,  even  while 
she  enters  the  life  of  the  poor  pilgrim  wdth  the  eager 
simplicity  and  participation  of  a  saint.  At  least  it  is 
something  like  that — if  only  these  definite  words 
and  phrases  seemed  at  all  to  suggest  the  living  light 
of  her  spirit. 

6 

We  drove  out  of  Norwich  then,  on  our  way  home, 
as  the  afternoon  grew  golden  towards  tea-time. 

202 


OUTSIDE  AND  BEYOND 

Before  leaving  the  city  we  should  not  forget  to  look 
with  interest,  in  passing,  at  the  big  tower  of  St. 
Giles's  church ;  for  it  was  at  St.  Giles's,  you  remem- 
ber, that  our  grandfather  had  formerly  ministered 
for  so  long.  It  was  a  church,  therefore,  that  peculi- 
arly belonged  to  Earlham,  though  the  days  of  the 
intimate  association  between  the  two  were  pretty 
well  beyond  our  memory.  The  legend  of  those 
years  still  survived  for  us,  however,  and  I  know 
exactly  how  at  Earlham,  on  Sunday  morning,  the 
household  would  dispose  itself  for  the  journey  to 
church.  Who  wants  to  drive  in  ? — who  will  walk  ? 
—the  question  ran  round  the  breakfast  table  and 
the  parties  were  made  up.  In  those  days  you 
naturally  wore  your  best  on  Sunday ;  but  your  best, 
though  it  was  brighter  and  crisper  and  tenser  than 
week-day  wear,  would  be  "  suitable,"  with  no  fly- 
away feathers  or  fancies,  and  I  see  how  the  ladies  of 
the  party,  when  they  assemble  in  the  hall,  touch  and 
pat  the  bows  of  their  bonnet-strings  and  ease  the 
set  of  their  veils.  They  would  gather  in  the  hall 
with  their  prayer-books  and  their  parasols,  and 
some  of  them  would  set  off  on  foot  with  our  grand- 
father and  our  uncles,  and  presently  the  carriage 
would  come  round  for  the  rest — and  all  this  is  only 
what  happens  in  the  morning,  and  there  is  almost 
as  large  an  attendance  for  the  journey  to  evening 
service,  after  tea.  Tea  on  Sunday,  moreover,  is 
particularly  memorable;  for  the  party  would  not 
get  home  again  till  rather  late — dinner  was  conse- 
quently always  "  supper  "  on  Sunday,  in  name  if  not 
in  character — and  this  required,  in  Mrs.  Chapman's 
view,  that  they  should  be  fortified  in  advance  with 

203 


E ARLH AM 

special  precautions.  Tea  on  Sunda}^  was  a  feast, 
magnificently  spread  out  in  the  dining-room,  and 
the  children  "  came  down  " ;  and  1  like  to  remem- 
ber that  nobody  could  permit  the  good  tradition  to 
drop,  even  when  its  reason  came  to  an  end.  Even- 
ing church,  in  our  time,  meant  only  the  little  walk 
to  the  village ;  but  the  grand  Sunday  tea  remained 
unchanged,  a  relic  of  the  legend  of  St.  Giles. 

We  should  glance  with  some  pride,  accordingly, 
at  -the  handsome  great  tower,  capped  with  its 
diminutive  belfry,  while  the  carriage  skirted  the 
enclosure  of  the  graveyard.  The  parish  of  St.  Giles 
is  near  the  edge  of  the  city  (or  it  was),  and  the  streets 
are  gentlemanly  and  quiet  and  Georgian.  Such  is 
my  impression ;  but  I  know  there  was  plenty  of 
scope,  around  and  out  of  sight,  for  our  grandfather's 
missionary  zeal.  He  and  his  wife  had  laboured  there 
abundantly  and  had  left  durable  monuments  of 
their  care.  The  very  church  itself  was  one  of  these ; 
for  when  they  took  the  parish  in  hand,  in  the  distant 
past,  they  found  that  a  part  of  it  had  been  allowed 
to  tumble  into  a  sad  state  of  ruin,  and  the  first 
necessity  was  to  repair  it  and  make  it  seemly  for 
worship.  So  bad  was  its  state  that  it  had  to  be 
closed  altogether  for  a  good  many  months,  while 
the  work  was  in  progress — and  what  was  to  be  done 
meanwhile  ?  Grandfather  used  to  tell  the  story  with 
spirit ;  the  rector  of  a  neiglibouring  parish,  a  small 
parish  with  a  big  church,  had  come  forward  with 
an  offer.  "  See  now,"  said  the  rector,  "  you've  got 
there  a  bowtiful  congregation  and  no  church  " — so 
grandfather  reported  the  scene — "  and  here  have  I 
got  a  bowtiful  church  and  no  congregation;  bring 

204 


OUTSIDE  AND  BEYOND 

you  your  congregation  then,  and  put  them  in  my 
church,  and  we  shall  manage  very  well."  So  it  was 
arranged ;  and  when  St.  Giles's  church  was  at  last 
in  order  grandfather  led  his  flock  thither  again,  with 
all  thanks  to  the  neighbouring  rector  for  his  help  in 
a  difficulty.  I  always  had  a  pleasant  impression  of 
the  incident,  and  I  should  not  fail  to  recall  it  as  we 
waved  our  salute  to  St.  Giles. 

We  should  very  soon  reach  the  country  and  the 
high-road  to  Earlham ;  but  the  last  outskirts  of  the 
city  give  me  several  pictures  that  I  must  not  forget. 
It  is  certain,  for  example,  that  we  should  stop  at 
English's,  the  chemist,  which  was  a  kind  of  clearing- 
house for  goods  and  parcels  directed  to  Earlham. 
English's  was  about  the  last  shop  you  passed  on  the 
way  out;  hence  its  convenience  for  our  purpose. 
When  you  went  shopping  in  Norwich  you  had  only 
to  say  "Send  the  parcel  to  English's";  whoever 
was  driving  out  would  be  sure  to  stop  there  and 
clear  the  daily  accumulation.  At  a  sign  from  the 
coachman,  as  the  carriage  drew  up,  the  accommo- 
dating Mr.  English  hurried  out  with  a  miscellaneous 
armful.  That  accomplished,  I  begin  to  find  my 
pictures  grow  a  little  confused;  for  change  was 
always  at  work  in  this  quarter,  and  from  one  year 
to  another  buildings  disappeared  and  sprang  up  in 
puzzling  succession.  Quite  clear,  however,  is  the 
vista  of  Chapel  Field  Road,  striking  off  obliquely  to 
the  left  along  the  Une  of  the  old  city-wall ;  a  soUd 
stretch  of  the  wall  itself  is  to  be  seen  in  the  back- 
gardens  of  the  houses  there,  and  grandmother  used 
to  tell  us  how  the  city-fathers  in  their  vandaHsm  had 
once  started  to  pull  down  the  "  poor  old  wall  "  from 

205 


EARLH AM 

end  to  end,  but  had  been  defeated  at  last  in  Chapel 
Field  Road  by  its  ancient  toughness,  and  had 
desisted,  leaving  the  reUc  we  could  still  see  trium- 
phant. This  was  an  image  we  enjoyed;  we  took 
sides  with  the  wall  against  the  stupid  fury  of 
modernity.  I  wish  I  could  see  Unthank  Road  as 
clearly ;  Unthank  Road  seems  to  have  .fallen  below 
the  strong  effect  of  its  name,  which  is  all  I  retain  of 
it.  West  Pottergate  Street  is  another  fine  phrase 
that  abides  with  me,  but  hardly  more  than  a  phrase. 
In  the  very  early  days  of  my  memory  there  was  a 
building,  near  the  limit  of  the  city,  which  it  was 
hard  to  pass  with  composure.  It  was  the  prison — 
such  a  terrific  old  place  of  black  gates  and  bulging 
towers  and  high  blind  walls.  A  shudder  seizes  me ; 
but  mercifully  the  prison  was  soon  to  disappear, 
and  very  slowly  another  building  arose  in  its  place, 
so  slowly  that  I  think  we  followed  its  growth 
through  many  years.  This  was  a  large  and  splendid 
church,  scrupulously  Gothic,  with  curious  rungs  or 
handles  attached  to  it — as  though  for  the  grasp  of  a 
giant  bending  over  the  pile  to  lift  it  bodily  in  the 
air;  "  flying  buttresses  "  they  were,  I  was  told.  It 
was  not  an  ordinary  church,  it  was  a  Roman 
Catholic  Cathedral;  and  I  looked  at  it,  I  well 
remember,  with  a  shade  of  mute  and  mournful 
regret,  puzzled  and  interested,  wondering  at  so 
vast  a  monument  of  perversity  and  yet  compelled 
to  admire  its  insolence.  But  we  scarcely  spoke  of  it, 
the  exotic  upstart — we  looked  and  passed ;  it  could 
by  no  manner  of  means  be  regarded  as  part  of  our 
Norwich,  and  on  the  whole  we  ignored  its  intrusion. 
And  very  soon  after  it  had  been  left  behind  we  were 

206 


OUTSIDE  AND  BEYOND 

out  in  the  country  and  were  mounting  the  long  slope 
of  Earlham  Rise,  past  the  gate  and  the  straight 
avenue  of  the  city  cemetery,  past  a  house  or  two 
and  a  farm  and  a  few  cottages ;  and  presently  it  was 
time  to  be  staring  ahead  for  the  first  sight  of  home. 
It  began  as  a  black  wooden  paling  and  a  narrow 
belt  of  trees  that  ran  beside  the  road  on  the  left. 
The  paling  stretched  far  and  far  ahead,  bordering 
the  road,  and  in  the  distance  you  discerned  where 
the  black  line  was  broken  by  a  speck  of  white.  I 
have  never  thought  of  that  white  speck  without  a 
quickening  surge  of  excitement;  tor  it  was  the 
gate,  the  white  gate  of  the  park,  the  end  of  our 
journey,  descried  in  the  distance  by  a  child  to  whom 
the  return  to  Earlham  was  the  fulfilment  of  romance. 
It  never  failed;  as  the  speck  grew  bigger  and 
bigger  I  always  knew  that  it  satisfied  my  need,  that 
it  opened  the  way  to  what  I  wanted.  And  I  can 
still  detect  a  twinge  of  something  like  surprise, 
when  we  reach  the  gate  at  last  and  the  carriage 
turns  in  and  bowls  along  the  drive — surprise  that 
it  should  be  so  easy,  after  all,  to  penetrate  into  the 
heart  of  poetry.  You  look  forward  to  it  for  ever  so 
long  beforehand,  you  wait  and  wonder  and  watch ; 
and  when  the  moment  arrives  so  much  seems  to 
depend  on  it,  the  crisis  has  grown  so  big — and  after 
all  the  carriage  sweeps  round  and  turns  in  at  the 
gate  quite  naturally,  and  nobody  thinks  it  strange, 
and  the  coachman  on  the  box  is  only  doing  what 
he  does  every  day  of  his  life.  I  feel  it  distinctly  as  a 
twinge  or  tweak  of  oddity ;  but  there  is  small  time 
to  weigh  these  grains  of  sensation  at  such  a  climax. 

207 


EARLHAM 


7       ^ 

As  the  days  slip  forward  I  become  aware  that  the 
Sunday  approaching  has  been  fixed  for  our  "  har- 
vest thanksgiving."  To  the  children  the  festival 
was  always  welcome ;  it  was  celebrated  in  Earlham 
church,  on  some  Sunday  morning  of  September; 
and  it  was  rather  a  splendid  occasion  in  itself,  but 
it  was  still  more  notable  for  the  preparations  it 
demanded  in  advance.  We  plunged  into  them  at  an 
early  hour,  on  the  morning  before  the  appointed 
day;  other  engagements  all  gave  place — our  help 
was  required,  at  least  it  was  tolerated,  in  the 
business  of  "  decorating  the  church."  Does  it 
sound  a  little  tame  ?  We  certainly  didn't  find  it  so ; 
and  when  I  now  arrive  in  thought  at  the  churchyard 
gate,  and  climb  the  steep  path  to  the  porch,  and 
note  that  a  stack  of  flowers  and  fruits  and  vegetables 
has  already  been  piled  there  for  our  use,  I  am  in- 
spired again  with  a  certain  stir  of  importance  that 
I  should  be  sorry  to  have  missed. 

Our  grandfather,  I  suppose,  yielded  to  a  popular 
demand — for  he  was  inclined  to  mislike  these 
celebrations.  It  is  imdeniable,  you  see,  that  in  some 
years  the  harvest  is  poor  and  thin;  and  are  you 
prepared  to  weigh  the  heartiness  of  your  thanks- 
giving against  the  particular  store  of  the  season, 
such  as  it  may  be?  Will  you  presume  to  decide, 
from  year  to  year,  whether  the  harvest  has  sur- 
passed or  fallen  short  of  your  just  expectation, 
whether  it  is  richer  or  poorer  than  you  deserve  ? 
Not  thus  will  a  really  grateful  and  humble  soul  be 
willing  to  bargain  and  calculate.     He  will  give 

208 


OUTSIDE  AND  BEYOND 

thanks  at  all  hours  and  seasons  for  immeasurable 
mercies,  he  will  bow  his  head  to  chastisement  which 
must  still  be  merciful;  but  to  make  a  yearly 
practice  of  jubilantly  singing  "  We  plough  the  fields 
and  scatter  "  on  a  particular  Sunday — it  is  as  much 
as  to  assume  a  recurring  right  to  a  plentiful  harvest. 
So  our  grandfather  argued — most  reasonably,  it 
seems  to  me.  But  he  was  never  one  to  force  an 
argument  harshly;  for  even  his  strongest  convic- 
tions, reaching  far  down  into  his  character,  found 
nowhere  in  him  the  strain  of  tyranny  that  is  always 
so  ready  to  turn  a  strong  conviction  to  its  own 
account.  He  believed,  but  his  belief  could  never  be 
seized  upon  and  made  use  of  by  any  lurking  love  of 
power,  for  he  had  none  in  any  corner  of  his  mind. 
He  could  not  tyrannize,  even  in  the  smallest  things ; 
and  so  we  had  our  harvest  thanksgiving  and  made 
the  most  of  it. 

And  to  begin  with  the  church  must  be  decorated, 
and  I  perfectly  understand  the  charm  of  helping 
or  hindering  that  amusing  process.  The  place 
where  habitually  one  has  to  sit  still  and  look  on  is 
the  place  where  one  always  dreams  of  being 
allowed  to  play  freely — it  is  natural  enough.  There 
were  certain  horrible  little  villa-gardens,  with 
twisting  walks  and  terrace-steps,  which  we  could 
see  from  the  train  on  the  journey  to  London;  and 
even  the  garden  of  Earlham  hardly  seemed  a  more 
alluring  playground  than  these — to  this  day  I  look 
out  for  them  to  see  if  they  still  exist,  still  tempting 
the  imagination.  And  the  inside  of  a  church,  where 
every  inch  has  been  explored  a  hundred  times  by 
wandering  eyes,  is  the  place  of  all  others  in  which 

209  p 


EARLHAM 

one  would  like  to  roam  at  ease  and  play  the  games 
for  which  it  is  so  well  adapted.  Pews  and  pulpit 
and  reading-desk,  the  chancel-screen,  the  gaUery 
under  the  tower,  I  knew  them  all  as  well  as  I  knew 
the  nursery  at  home ;  and  I  could  lose  myself  in  the 
fancy  of  being  given  the  run  of  the  church,  some 
week-day,  and  of  setting  up  a  shop  for  groceries  in 
one  of  the  pews,  climbing  into  the  pulpit  for  a  look- 
out or  addressing  a  mob  from  the  gaUery.  I  should 
highly  value,  therefore,  the  right  of  entry  into  a 
church  at  a  time  when  there  is  freedom  of  move- 
ment, when  I  have  the  chance  of  investigating  the 
recesses  that  are  hidden  from  my  fixed  post  on 
Sunday  morning ;  and  under  colour  of  helping  the 
young  ladies  of  the  parish  with  their  garlands  and 
festoons  I  can  make  some  interesting  researches  of 
my  own. 

Not  indeed  that  the  special  business  of  the  hour 
is  without  its  own  appeal ;  I  thoroughly  enjoyed  it, 
I  had  my  own  view  on  the  way  in  which  the  apples 
should  be  piled  about  the  font,  the  pumpkins 
(reheved  with  asparagus-plumes)  balanced  on  the 
window-ledges  and  the  bunches  of  scarlet  dahlias 
disposed  upon  the  screen.  The  young  ladies 
worked  brightly  and  sociably;  I  don't  exactly 
know  who  they  were,  but  an  impression  of  flushed 
faces  and  loose  hair  remains  with  me,  as  weU  as  a 
distinct  idea  that  one  of  them  was  the  **  beauty  " 
of  the  party — I  had  heard  her  so  described,  and  you 
could  tell  which  she  was  by  her  superior  manner  of 
keeping  herself  cool  and  aloof,  while  the  others 
grovelled  among  the  apples  and  hoisted  the  pump- 
kins to  their  appointed  places.     By  degrees  we 

210 


OUTSIDE  AND  BEYOND 

contrived  to  smother  the  little  church  from  end  to 
end,  it  seems  to  me,  with  the  spoils  of  the  year;  I 
particularly  remember  the  two  miniature  sheaves  or 
stooks  of  corn,  tied  with  an  artful  touch  of  realism, 
that  we  placed  in  the  embrasure  of  the  tiny  east 
window,  over  the  ten  commandments,  with  a 
mound  of  tomatoes  between  them.  And  I  also 
remember  very  vividly  indeed  how  the  young 
ladies,  as  the  morning  wore  on,  lost  some  of  their 
bright  good-will,  seemed  disincUned  for  exertion, 
grew  a  little  short  and  sharp  with  each  other — a 
real  bit  of  experience  for  me,  I  somehow  felt,  and  a 
glimpse  of  curious  life.  I  carefully  took  it  in,  and 
actually  it  represented,  I  beheve,  a  discovery;  for 
though  the  storms  and  squabbles  of  the  nursery 
were  of  course  famihar,  the  sight  of  grown-up  people 
distinctly  out  of  temper  among  themselves  and  on 
their  own  ground  was  new  to  me,  I  really  think. 
Such  an  impression  enlarged  one's  horizon,  even  if 
it  damped  the  fun  of  the  moment;  and  I  had 
another  revelation  when  our  grandmother  dropped 
in  upon  the  scene,  \\dth  her  happy  voice  of  greeting 
and  congratulation,  and  immediately  the  young 
ladies  were  bright  and  good  again,  dissembling  their 
breeze  of  ill-humour — one  could  easily  see  they  were 
a  little  ashamed  of  it  and  felt  a  trifle  awkward,  and 
this  too  was  a  new  light  on  the  world.  But  I  was 
far  from  blaming  the  poor  things  for  their  irritation ; 
the  beauty  had  been  quite  exasperating. 

8 
The  north  door  of  the  little  transept,  standing 
open,  would  tempt  one  into  the  shadow  of  the 

211 


E ARLH AM 

churchyard.  The  low  side  of  an  old  plastered  house 
abuts  on  it  in  this  quarter;  square  windows  look 
out  upon  the  graveyard,  the  yellowish  wall  catches 
the  sunshine  and  lights  up  the  northern  shadow  of 
the  church.  The  house,  I  suppose,  had  once  been 
the  vicarage ;  but  long  ago  the  two  small  parishes, 
Earlham  and  Colney,  had  been  united  in  one  cure, 
and  the  vicarage  had  become  The  Lodge.  That  was 
the  house  in  which  our  grandmother  had  lived  in 
those  early  years  of  her  far-away  first  marriage, 
when  Uncle  Joseph  John,  with  his  succession  of 
wives  and  his  fine  old  sister,  was  still  serenely 
studying  and  meditating  up  at  the  Hall.  Our 
young  grandmother,  walking  thither  with  her 
husband  to  join  him  in.  a  quiet  stroll,  may  often 
have  found  him  at  work  upon  his  manuscript ;  he 
would  sit  by  the  window  of  his  small  study — the 
school-room  of  our  day — pondering  his  argument, 
polishing  his  phrase,  forgetting  the  flight  of  the 
hours.  He  wrote  several  books,  and  after  his 
death  they  were  collected  in  a  uniform  edition; 
they  stood  on  a  shelf  at  Earlham,  leather-bound  and 
gilt,  untouched  for  the  rest  of  time.  To  his  fresh 
young  niece,  when  she  came  strolling  up  through 
the  garden  on  the  arm  of  her  husband  and  looked  in 
at  the  study-window,  he  would  present  a  picture  of 
wisdom  and  piety  that  had  all  her  veneration ;  no 
doubt  she  listened  with  the  deepest  respect  when 
he  spoke  of  his  manuscript  and  indicated  the  nature 
of  the  work,  I  dare  say  she  even  tried  to  read  it 
when  it  was  published.  She  intensely  felt  the 
privilege  of  associating  with  such  a  Christian  and 
such  a  thinker ;  she  would  do  her  best  to  profit  by 

212 


OUTSIDE  AND   BEYOND 

the  opportunity,  she  would  embark  upon  a  course 
of  serious  reading,  she  would  begin  to  fill  a  copy- 
book with  notes  on  the  history  of  the  early  church. 
Somehow  the  notes  gave  out  after  a  page  or  two, 
and  I  am  sure  that  in  after  years  she  could  not 
have  told  us  the  name  of  any  of  Uncle  Joseph  John's 
collected  volumes.  But  I  hope  the  grave-eyed 
author  had  an  inkling,  when  he  looked  up  from  his 
desk  and  met  her  bright  admiring  gaze,  of  the 
freedom  and  the  sparkle  of  her  genius  compared 
with  the  dead  weight  of  solemnity  that  was  loading 
his  page  upon  the  evidential  value  of  the  story  of 
Genesis  regarded  in  the  light  of — enough,  let  the 
page  lie  forgotten,  embalmed  in  the  fragrance  of  our 
grandmother's  respect  for  it. 

She  was  a  girl,  still  under  twenty,  and  her  husband 
was  a  good  many  years  older  and  almost  an  invalid ; 
and  Earlham  in  those  years  was  rather  an  elderly 
place  for  her,  no  doubt.  The  gay  youth  of  its  big 
famil}^  was  long  past ;  there  were  no  more  scarlet 
habits  or  purple  boots  to  be  seen  at  Earlham  in  the 
days  when  Joseph  John  was  writing  his  books  in  the 
school-room,  reconciling  old  faiths  and  new  sciences. 
When  his  nephew  brought  our  young  grandmother 
to  live  at  the  Lodge,  she  might  indeed  consider 
herself  privileged  to  join  a  circle  that  was  at  once 
so  good  and  so  wise — but  is  it  possible  that  she 
ever  felt  a  little  lonely  there,  among  these  elderly 
ensamples  of  worth?  If  she  did,  I  could  believe 
that  she  never  knew  it  herself,  never  doubted  that 
her  youth  was  entirely  glad  and  eager  to  admire,  to 
venerate,  to  follow  the  guidance  of  saintly  age ;  and 
presently  she  had  her  own  young  children  about 

213 


EARLH AM 

her,  and  she  was  a  matron  of  twenty  among  the 
responsibihties  of  Hfe.  She  took  up  the  tradition 
of  Earlham  and  renewed  it,  as  I  have  described,  and 
that  tradition  had  never  become  sombre  or  dull — 
it  could  never  be  that,  with  Aunt  Catherine  still 
at  hand,  and  Aunt  Cunningham  descending  with 
her  sketch-books  on  a  visit  from  Lowestoft,  and 
old  Samuel,  their  London  brother,  rumbling  up  from 
time  to  time  in  his  ponderous  silk-lined  chariot. 
The  old  people  were  charming,  their  blitheness  was 
unquenched ;  but  still  they  were  old  by  this  time — 
for  her  at  least  they  were  old — and  when  I  think 
of  the  young  girl  in  their  midst  I  can't  help  feeling 
that  her  opportunities  of  admiring  and  reverencing 
her  elders  were  even  excessive.  From  her  child- 
hood in  the  Cathedral  Close,  from  the  chatter  of  her 
sisters  and  the  romantic  elegance  of  her  mother, 
she  came  straight  into  this  circle  of  notable  and 
substantial  old  people;  and  in  her  simplicity  and 
her  gratitude  she  could  only  begin  to  look  up  to 
them,  continue  to  watch  and  wait  upon  their 
example — until  a  new  generation  was  already  about 
her,  and  she  was  herself  the  vessel  of  the  old 
tradition. 

Yet  I  hardly  know — a  nature  like  hers  can  spend 
itself  in  devotion,  can  surrender  itself  uncon- 
ditionally, and  at  the  same  time  always  remain  more 
independent  and  m.ore  original  and  more  buoyant 
than  another;  our  grandmother,  young  or  old, 
must  always  have  been  herself.  If  I  could  now 
catch  sight  of  her  in  her  youth — say  at  such  a 
moment  as  I  have  imagined,  when  she  walked  under 
the  trees  on  the  arm  of  her  husband  and  glanced 

214 


OUTSIDE  AND  BEYOND 

in  at  the  window  upon  the  quiet  old  man  over  his 
books — surely  I  should  know  her  at  once  as  we 
knew  her  fifty  years  after.  In  her  youth  she  would 
sweep  her  voluminous  skirt  over  the  grass  and  hold 
her  head  up  like  a  picture,  as  ever  in  her  old  age ; 
and  to  the  end  of  her  life  her  quick  clear  spontaneity 
was  the  same  as  ever  in  her  girlhood.  She  was  grave 
and  she  was  gay  according  to  her  own  native  law ; 
all  the  influences  of  her  reverend  elders  could  not 
weight  her  youth  unduly  or  fasten  maturity  upon 
her  prematurely — because  from  the  beginning  she 
was  herself,  with  a  nature  that  unfolded  and 
bloomed  like  a  flower.  In  those  days,  therefore, 
when  she  lived  at  the  Lodge  and  was  treated  by  the 
circle  of  Earlham  ever  so  affectionately,  but  still 
with  an  implication  that  a  married  woman  of 
seventeen  is  well  in  the  midst  of  the  seriousness  of 
life — in  those  days  her  genius  already  played  easily, 
with  its  rightful  freedom,  and  we  have  only  to  wish 
that  her  elders  recognized  and  admired  it  properly. 
Most  of  them  did  for  certain,  especially  Aunt 
Catherine;  and  if  I  have  a  lingering  doubt  about 
old  Joseph  John  it  probably  does  him  injustice. 
When,  leaving  his  desk,  he  paced  the  lawn  with 
his  nephew's  young  wife,  I  dare  say  his  look 
brightened  and  twinkled  through  the  smooth,  too 
smoothly  christian  serenity  that  I  always  thought 
it  wore  in  his  portrait.  I  may  wrong  him  in 
supposing  that  he  held  forth  to  her  about  his 
treatise  on  the  fall  of  man ;  perhaps  he  recalled  and 
described  to  her  his  encounter  with  the  young 
fisherman  down  by  the  bridge,  and  the  visit  after- 
wards paid  him  by  Lavengro. 

215 


E ARLH AM 


9 
The  Lodge,  embowered  in  great  trees,  looked  out 

upon  the  churchyard  with  its  side- windows.    Behind 

and  below  it,  towards  the  river,  was  the  Farm,  and 

we  might  stray  out  through  the  ducks  and  the 

turkeys  to  the  water-meadows,  where  the  shallow 

stream,  not  here  navigable,  tinkled  and  bubbled 

over  a  gravelly  bed.     But  no,  I  take  the  road  to 

Colney,  the  high  road  that  has  arrived  at  Earlham 

from  Norwich  and  now  proceeds  over  the  bridge 

towards  the  rising  ground  beyond.    Earlham  village 

was  hardly  a  village  at  all — the  church,  the  Lodge, 

the  Farm,  one  small  row  of  cottages,  nothing  more ; 

and  then  the  road  lifted  itself  gently  over  the  solid 

arch  of  the  bridge  and  entered  the  parish  of  Colney. 

It  is  worth  while  to  pause  upon  the  bridge,  though, 

partly  to  hang  over  the  flat-topped  parapet  and 

stare  into  the  blackness  of  the  pool,  partly  to  note 

the  round  cutting  through  the  trees,  leading  to  one 

of  the  drawing-room  windows  up  at  the  house — you 

remember  the  drawing-room  window-seat,  where 

the  child  sat  and  listened  to  the  story  of  the  blazing 

house,  and  how  one  saw  the  view  of  the  bridge  from 

it,  neatly  set  in  a  round  frame  of  greenery.    From 

the  bridge  one  reverses  the  view,  and  I  should  not 

pass  on  without  dwelling  upon  the  fact  for  a  moment. 

Then  we  wander  on  towards  Colnej^  (be  sure  to 

call  it  Co'ney),  which  is  upon  higher  ground  and 

is  rather  more  of  a  village  than  Earlham.     There 

were  scattered  old  cottages,  red  and  grey,  with 

vines  and  pear-trees  trained  about  their  windows, 

and  presently  a  big  farm  to  the  left  of  the  road ;  but 

216 


OUTSIDE  AND  BEYOND 

especially  there  was  the  church-tower,  soon  in  sight, 
which  was  a  curiosity  we  were  proud  of.  It  is  one 
of  those  round  towers  of  flint,  smooth  and  bare, 
that  are  not  very  uncommon  in  East  Anglia,  I 
know ;  but  to  our  eyes  it  was  rare  and  strange,  and 
it  gave  character  to  a  village  that  otherwise  hadn't 
really  very  much.  And  it  was  not  only  the  tower — 
the  church  within  had  a  singular  interest,  to  my 
mind,  in  the  days  I  speak  of.  It  was  all  furnished 
with  high  square  pews,  like  rows  of  little  roofless 
houses;  I  had  never  seen  anything  of  the  sort 
elsewhere,  and  I  believed  them  peculiar  to  Colney 
church.  You  enter  into  your  queer  small  house  and 
shut  the  front-door — it  is  charming;  the  world  is 
completely  cut  off  by  the  high  walls,  you  see 
nothing  above  them  but  the  rafters  of  the  church- 
roof  and  the  top  of  the  chancel-arch.  If  only  I 
could  be  left  to  myself  in  such  a  place,  I  could  live 
a  life  there  that  would  satisfy  many  dreams;  a 
whole  street  of  private  houses,  each  with  its  own 
front-door  and  its  four  solid  walls — it  is  almost 
cruel  how  they  stand  there  waiting  to  be  used,  to  be 
drawn  into  a  sequence  of  adventure  that  is  abso- 
lutely denied  to  me.  There  was  no  chance  that 
Colney  church  would  ever  be  placed  at  my  disposal 
for  the  kind  of  life  I  could  see  myself  leading  there ; 
it  was  useless  to  think  of  it. 

What  happened  instead,  though  it  began  well, 
turned  very  soon  to  a  dreary  affair.  The  high  pew 
was  empty  within,  save  for  a  few  red  hassocks  and 
a  bench  that  ran  round  three  sides  of  the  square ; 
and  by  the  time  the  Sunday  morning  party  has 
entered  in  and  shut  the  door  and  taken  their  seats 

217 


EARLH AM 

on  the  bench,  you  may  say  that  the  entertainment 
of  the  occasion  is  over.  It  is  all  very  well  to  admire 
the  privacy  and  seclusion  of  your  retreat,  once  the 
front-door  is  shut  and  latched ;  but  I  can't  tell  you 
how  soon  the  hardness  of  the  bench  and  the  short- 
ness of  one's  legs  and  the  blankness  of  the  four  walls 
— how  soon,  in  fact,  the  case  becomes  intolerable. 
The  voice  of  the  minister  falls  and  rises,  the  clerk 
mouths  out  the  responses  with  the  low  buzz  of  the 
congregation  behind  him,  the  harmonium,  with  that 
strange  me\ving  voice  that  I  know  so  well,  sets  up 
the  tune  of  "  Rockingham " — and  all  unseen, 
hidden  from  sight  behind  the  dull  wooden  walls; 
and  it  really  seems  impossible  to  last  out  the  hour 
of  the  service  with  nothing  to  look  at.  So  I  should 
say,  so  indeed  I  felt  it;  and  yet  I  find  that  once 
at  any  rate,  during  a  session  in  the  high  pew  at 
Colney  church,  there  fell  a  flash,  there  washed  over 
me  a  wave  of  sweetness,  which  was  wonderful  just 
because  it  came  so  unexpectedly  out  of  the  unseen. 
I  remember  perfectly  how  the  enclosure  in  which 
we  sat  appeared  to  contain  and  to  circumscribe  all 
the  resources  of  the  hour ;  the  music  and  the  voices 
without,  since  I  could  not  see  what  was  happening, 
were  removed  from  my  circle  of  experience — I 
could  do  nothing  with  them.  And  as  for  the 
resources  at  hand,  the  hassocks  and  the  prayer- 
books,  the  graining  of  the  wooden  walls,  the  features 
and  attitudes  of  my  two  or  three  companions,  these 
I  had  soon  exhausted,  and  my  world  for  the  hour 
before  me  looked  empty  indeed.  I  had  no  thought 
of  anything  entering  it,  piercing  a  way  into  my  life, 
from  the  region  without,  where  the  buzzing  and 

218 


OUTSIDE  AND  BEYOND 

droning  of  the  service  went  forward;  and  then 
suddenly  a  hymn  was  started,  not  Rockingham 
this  time,  which  for  some  reason  or  other  rolled  over 
and  invaded  me  as  though  it  sought  me  out  on 
purpose.  It  seemed  to  be  sung  for  me — I  accepted 
it  at  once ;  I  shall  never  forget  how  the  first  phrase 
of  the  tune  settled  into  my  brain  as  though  taking 
possession  of  its  own.  It  was  nothing  new,  it  was 
an  old  tune  we  had  heard  and  sung  a  hundred  times ; 
but  it  became  entirely  new  at  that  moment  and 
always  afterwards  remained  so.  "  Our  blest  Re- 
deemer, ere  he  breathed — his  Ten-der  last  fare- 
well " :  it  was  only  that — and  I  have  never  heard 
or  thought  of  it  since  then  without  standing  on  a 
footstool  in  a  high  pew,  between  two  grown-up  com- 
panions, with  the  rafters  of  Colney  church  over- 
head. 

ID 

Yet  the  village  of  Colney  always  seemed  to  me 
slightly  foreign  and  strange.  It  lay  upon  the  very 
limit  of  our  ordinary  beat;  our  straggling  walks 
took  us  no  further  out  into  the  world  in  that  quarter, 
as  it  happened.  The  road  ran  on,  but  so  much  had 
always  delayed  us  by  the  way,  in  a  short  mile  or  so, 
that  it  was  time  to  turn  round  and  go  home; 
beyond  Colney  was  the  unknown,  and  Colney  itself, 
I  felt,  was  never  completely  mine.  One's  normal 
range,  in  fact,  is  not  very  wide  by  any  measure, 
so  long  as  a  morning's  v/alk  is  the  kind  of  progress 
that  I  closely  connect  with  the  Colney  road.  I 
should  set  forth  on  that  walk  quite  briskly,  stepping 
out  by  the  side  of  our  companion  in  charge  and 

219 


E ARLH AM 

easily  breaking  into  a  trot  now  and  then  to  maintain 
our  pace.  We  should  positively  scud  down  the 
drive  and  through  the  village  and  over  the  bridge, 
devouring  the  way ;  and  yet  we  seem  to  have  gone 
no  distance  at  all  before  I  find  myself  adrift, 
detached  from  the  party,  staring  after  them  over  an 
increasing  interval.  It  was  natural  to  pause  by  the 
bridge,  as  I  have  explained ;  and  from  that  moment 
onwards  our  brisk  and  business-like  expedition 
begins  to  fall  to  pieces.  The  interval  over  which 
I  must  overtake  the  party  is  impossible ;  strive  as  I 
may,  it  never  grows  less.  If  I  stop  for  an  instant 
they  are  almost  out  of  sight,  and  the  hard  wail  of  my 
voice  is  still  in  my  ears — "  Wait  for  Meeeee!  " 

So  it  is  not  surprising  that  we  never  saw  much  of 
the  outland  country  beyond  Colney.  That  was  a 
region  that  was  lighted  in  my  imagination  by  little 
but  the  names,  the  glorious  names  of  the  villages, 
which  flashed  out  casually  in  the  conversation  of 
our  uncles  and  grandparents.  I  have  named  some 
of  them;  but  did  I  mention  Bawburgh,  which  we 
speak  of  as  "  Baber  "  ? — I  particularly  liked  the 
look  of  it  on  a  sign-post.  On  days  of  early  Sep- 
tember, that  were  still  like  high  August,  we  might 
see  our  uncles  drive  forth  in  the  dog-cart  from 
Earlham  with  guns,  with  leather  patches  on  their 
shoulders,  with  caps  that  were  peaked  both  fore 
and  aft  and  tied  up  at  the  top — drive  forth  to 
shooting-parties  in  that  world  of  the  unknown,  from 
which  they  returned  with  flights  of  jest  and  anec- 
dote finer  than  ever.  I  had  the  strongest  impression 
of  the  free  manly  life  of  dog-carts  and  gun-cases 
and  jovial  fellowship  at  such  times — ^life  that  sent 

220 


OUTSIDE  AND   BEYOND 

out  a  tumultuous  surge  all  round  it,  till  even  the 
small  cockle-shell  of  my  own  being,  infinitely  far 
from  the  centre,  began  to  jump  beneath  me.  The 
shooting-parties  were  wildly  beyond  our  ken,  and 
the  uttermost  reverberation  of  them  was  quite 
enough  for  me;  but  I  know  there  were  moments 
when  I  reaUy  was  a  little  ashamed  of  the  mild 
triviality  of  our  own  occupations,  and  stiU  more 
ashamed  of  being  so  well  content  with  them. 

The  world  of  men,  however,  which  had  little  need 
for  me  when  it  shot,  opened  to  us  most  interestingly 
at  certain  other  times.  They  shoot  a  great  deal  in 
September,  especially  in  Norfolk ;  but  particularly 
in  Norfolk  they  do  more — they  go  on  the  Broads. 
They  disappear  for  days  and  weeks  together ;  and 
we  at  home,  when  we  are  asked  what  they  are 
doing,  reply  simply  that  they  are  "  on  the  Broads." 
What  does  it  mean  ?  For  a  long  while,  though  the 
phrase  was  very  familiar  to  me,  I  hadn't  the  least 
idea  what  it  meant ;  the  phrase  sufficed.  Earlham 
does  not  lie  in  the  region  of  the  Broads ;  but  there 
came  a  day  when  at  last  we  made  the  excursion 
thither,  and  saw  for  ourselves  how  life  is  lived  on 
them.  We  visited  a  party  of  young  men  who  were 
sketchily  keeping  house  in  a  beautiful  ship;  we 
spent  some  brilliant  hours  with  them  on  the  open 
waters  of  Wroxham  or  Ranworth — and  that  was 
life  on  the  Broads.  There  were  many  such  days, 
first  and  last,  days  of  dazzling  suns  and  flapping 
sails  and  popping  corks — so  the  impression  returns 
to  me.  The  reed-beds  and  the  vast  pale  sky  and 
the  long  level  lines  of  the  green  shore  were  delicious 
as  the  blaze  of  the  waters  gradually  faded ;  we  made 

221 


*  EARLHAM 

our  way  into  some  staithe  or  winding  creek;  we 
scrambled  to  land  and  found  flowering  bulrushes 
and  loaded  ourselves  with  spoils  for  the  journey 
home.  At  the  end  of  such  a  day,  sleepily  nodding 
in  the  train  that  took  us  back  to  Norwich,  I  could 
feel  replete  with  large  experience.  I  didn't  envy 
the  young  men  in  their  ship — far  from  it ;  the  path 
of  prudence  took  one  home  in  the  train,  at  the  end 
of  the  day,  by  the  time  when  the  sense  of  adventure 
began  to  droop,  as  it  will,  with  the  failing  light. 
But  I  had  no  reason  to  envy  them,  for  I  carried  my 
adventure  away  with  me,  safely  stored,  and  could 
always  fall  back  on  it  when  I  would.  When  you 
have  once  spent  a  day  at  Wroxham  with  a  party  of 
competent  and  masterful  young  men,  nothing  can 
ever  remove  it  from  your  past;  you  are  one  who 
has  "  been  on  the  Broads,"  and  I  seem  to  remember 
that  you  allow  no  one  to  forget  it. 

The  day  when  we  visited  the  Decoy — that  was 
rather  different ;  for  the  Decoy  was  on  an  outlying 
lake,  and  we  were  taken  there  by  a  party  that  was 
neither  manly  nor  mature.  I  see  a  boat-full  of 
friends  and  cousins,  not  at  all  elderly,  with  whom  we 
paddle  out  upon  a  long  stretch  of  water  surrounded 
by  a  wooded  shore.  At  the  far  end  of  the  lake,  out 
of  sight,  lies  the  Decoy,  whatever  you  may  under- 
stand by  that.  I  don't  know  what  I  expected  to 
see,  but  I  was  very  anxious  to  see  it;  and  we 
paddled  away  down  the  lake  and  sidled  along  the 
shadowy  bank.  And  very  memorable  it  was  that 
at  a  certain  point  we  ran  into  a  small  grove  of 
rushes,  growing  in  the  water,  and  these  were  scented 
rushes,  deliciously  odorous  and  aromatic,  such  as  I 

222 


OUTSIDE  AND  BEYOND 

had  never  met  with  before  but  once — need  I  say 
where  and  when?  It  was  in  the  Fifth  Square, 
which  as  you  know  was  mostly  water;  AUce  was 
rowing  the  boat,  the  sheep  was  sitting  in  the  stern 
with  her  preposterous  knitting ;  and  Alice  plucked 
up  the  rushes  by  handfuls,  just  as  we  did,  and  piled 
them  on  the  floor  of  the  boat.  I  was  disappointed 
to  find  that  they  didn't  fade  any  faster  than  you 
would  expect,  but  otherwise  they  were  the  true 
scented  rushes  of  the  Looking-glass,  growing  in  real 
life.  I  have  always  liked  to  recall  them,  more 
especially  as  the  Decoy  didn't  reaUy  satisfy  me  after 
all,  when  we  reached  it  at  last.  It  is  strange  and 
mysterious  indeed — the  large  netted  archway  that 
spans  the  mouth  of  the  creek,  gradually  narrowing 
as  the  creek  curves  away  from  the  entrance ;  so  that 
you  sail  in  unsuspectingly  and  follow  the  curve  and 
find  yourself  caught  in  a  bag,  so  to  speak,  at  the  end 
of  it.  It  is  strange — but  it  is  empty  and  silent,  or 
it  was  on  that  day,  and  I  couldn't  very  well  under- 
stand the  system  of  its  working,  when  it  is  worked. 
There  is  a  mazy  contrivance  of  reed-fences,  along 
the  edge  of  the  creek,  among  which  a  trained  dog 
dashes  and  barks  to  drive  the  ducks  in  to  their 
doom;  it  was  all  explained  to  us,  explained  too 
much,  and  I  soon  got  lost.  I  was  more  at  home  in 
the  Fifth  Square,  across  which  we  presently 
returned. 

II 
But  these  excursions  into  the  outer  world  were 
special  and  exceptional,  and  I  soon  get  back  to  the 
Colney  road  and  the  long'straggle  of  the  way  home. 

223 


E ARLH AM 

The  interest  of  a  walk,  I  always  find,  is  over  when 
it  is  time  to  turn  round  and  retrace  one's  steps; 
from  that  moment  I  am  solely  given  up  to  the  effort 
of  progress,  trying  to  reduce  the  everlasting  interval 
between  myself  and  the  rest  of  the  party.  Nothing 
happens,  nothing  relieves  the  mechanical  plod  of 
the  journey;  that  mile  or  so  of  plain  road  between 
Colney  village  and  Earlham  bridge  is  like  a  hundred. 
Nothing  happens — but  I  do  remember,  it  is  true, 
the  sight  of  our  grandfather's  tall  black  figure  issu- 
ing from  a  cottage-door  by  the  wayside,  and  how  he 
smiled  at  us  with  his  "  How  do  you  do,  sir — how 
do  you  do,  miss,"  humorously  formal,  and  marched 
away  down  the  road  with  the  steady  rhythm  of  his 
big  boots.  He  had  been  making  a  parochial  round, 
no  doubt;  and  I  reflect  that  I  never  happened  to 
see  him,  as  I  saw  our  grandmother  so  often,  talking 
and  ministering  to  the  old  souls  of  the  parish.  He 
had  dropped  in  for  a  visit  and  a  chat  in  the  course 
of  his  round;  but  I  can't  picture  the  interview — 
evidently  his  way  must  have  been  quite  different 
from  grandmother's  lyrical,  tuneful,  clear-ringing 
intimacy.  When  his  voice  was  raised  in  prayer,  as  I 
have  said,  all  barriers  seemed  to  be  broken  down, 
his  heart  was  laid  bare.  But  in  intercourse  with 
the  world  he  spoke  from  behind  a  veil  of  reserve — 
light  and  grey  and  soft,  never  hiding  the  shine  of  his 
benevolence,  only  muffling  and  muting  his  tone  just 
a  little ;  and  I  wonder  what  he  talked  to  Mrs.  Giles 
about,  when  he  dropped  in  for  a  morning  call. 

"  Master '11  be  home  before  us — he  walk  so  fast." 
The  words,  falling  on  my  ear  in  a  well-known  voice, 
remind  me  that  the  companions  of  our  walk  had 

224 


OUTSIDE  AND  BEYOND 

waited  for  me  and  that  I  was  clinging  to  the  kindly 
arm  of  one  of  them  when  we  sighted  our  grandfather. 
By  the  household  of  Earlham  he  was  always  spoken 
of  as  "  Master,"  and  grandmother  as  "  Mistress  " ; 
and  in  the  speech  of  all  the  household  there  were 
agreeable  touches  of  the  Norfolk  manner,  native  to 
each  one  of  them.  "  He  walk  so  fast — he  never 
dawdle,"  says  our  dear  and  fond  companion  (she 
was  grandmother's  maid  in  those  days) ;  and  we 
forgot  to  loiter  and  lag,  I  dare  say,  in  the  ready 
charm  of  her  conversation.  Everybody  at  Earlham 
talked  well,  and  with  this  particular  friend  I  some- 
times thought  that  I  too  was  quite  at  my  best.  We 
chatted  lightly,  with  swift  retorts  and  rejoinders  in 
excellent  style ;  we  kept  up  an  easy  give-and-take, 
never  flagging  on  either  side.  There  were  exquisite 
jokes  that  dated  from  the  far  past  and  that  sprang 
up  unfailingly  from  year  to  year — ^jokes  that  leaped 
to  life  again  at  a  word,  an  allusion,  with  the  rare 
property  (since  lost  to  such  things)  of  growing 
funnier  by  simple  repetition.  One  or  two  of  them 
could  beguile  that  endless  journey  home ;  but  what- 
ever pace  we  might  make  we  should  certainly  be  left 
far  behind  by  grandfather's  mile-devouring  tramp. 
I  can't  picture  his  call  upon  Mrs.  Giles — for  he 
had  no  vestige  of  the  conventional  brightness  and 
heartiness  of  the  minister  among  the  poor  of  his 
parish;  he  had  no  professional  manner  or  trick  to 
fall  back  upon  in  the  routine  of  his  office.  He  never 
looked  like  a  country  parson  walking  through  his 
village;  he  looked  like  a  tall  grave  scholar,  a 
clerical  don  perhaps,  tramping  out  for  his  daily 
hour  of  exercise  and  fresh  air.    You  would  expect 

225  Q 


E ARLH AM 

the  incumbent  of  a  parish  to  seem  more  prepared 
for  the  fray,  more  equipped  for  conquest,  shining 
with  the  assurance  of  his  mission,  issuing  forth  in 
the  morning  to  enter  the  hves  of  others  for  their 
good ;  such  at  least  is  the  image  that  occurs  to  me 
when  I  notice  the  very  different  style  of  our  grand- 
father. So  far  from  assuming  a  right  and  a  duty  to 
lay  hold  of  the  lives  of  his  neighbours,  even  in  the 
name  of  charity,  he  appeared  to  pause  diffidently 
and  civiUy,  refusing  to  take  any  such  liberty  unin- 
vited. Missionary  zeal  is  a  fine  flame,  but  it  does 
not  abolish  the  law  of  simple  good  manners;  and 
that  law  will  make  one  hesitate,  I  should  hope, 
before  encroaching  as  of  right  upon  the  privacy  of 
another.  Our  grandfather,  I  think,  treated  his 
parishioners  exactly  as  he  would  treat  a  guest  under 
his  roof  and  at  his  table — they  had  a  hke  claim  for  a 
courteous  consideration  of  their  prejudices,  their 
shortcomings.  It  is  impossible  to  see  him  intruding 
into  the  affairs  of  his  flock  with  free  familiarity, 
just  because  he  happened  to  be  their  pastor.  To 
grandmother  these  scruples  were  quite  unknown; 
but  she  too  made  nothing  of  any  diflerence  between 
the  guest  at  Earlham  and  Mrs.  Giles  in  her  cottage 
at  Colney.  She  never  paused  upon  any  threshold ; 
she  entered  in,  and  the  word  of  greeting,  of  sym- 
pathy, of  advice — and  of  reproof,  if  so  it  chanced — 
sprang  straight  from  her  heart.  But  neither  did 
she,  any  more  than  he,  set  out  with  a  mission  to  do 
good ;  she  did  what  she  could  not  help  doing — ^good 
everywhere. 

I  very  much  doubt,  therefore,  whether  grand- 
father had  really  taken  the  old  woman  at  Colney 

226 


OUTSIDE  AND  BEYOND 

to  task  for  her  delinquencies — supposing  she  had 
laid  herself  open  to  reproach.  He  had  probably  sat 
with  her  and  talked  of  the  weather  and  her  rheuma- 
tism and  her  grandchildren,  without  so  much  as 
touching  upon  the  question  of  her  obstinate  refusal 
to  come  to  church  more  regularly.  But  then  there 
was  another  side  to  the  manner  of  his  ministration, 
and  I  am  sure  it  was  not  often  or  for  long  that  that 
side  was  ever  obscured.  He  could  not  reprove  or 
find  fault,  and  perhaps  he  could  not  mix  intimately 
with  the  world  on  any  common  terms;  but  in 
prayer  he  was  transformed,  and  when  he  prayed 
there  was  no  separation  between  himself  and  his 
companions.  He  was  transformed — but  it  was 
rather  as  though  he  then  came  to  his  own,  passed 
on  to  his  own  ground,  leaving  behind  him  the  region 
where  true  intercourse  is  hampered  by  accident  and 
trivial  difficulties. ,  Prayer  seemed  his  natural  voice, 
and  the  beautiful  freedom  of  its  tone  was  enhanced 
by  the  contrast  with  its  veiled  and  dusky  shynesses 
at  other  times.  I  have  witnessed  the  change  so 
often ;  it  happened  so  often  and  so  simply  that  in 
some  small  gathering  of  his  family,  when  we  sat 
sociably  in  the  evening  and  he  listened  to  the  light 
talk  in  kindly  silence — it  happened  so  familiarly 
that  before  we  dispersed  he  would  kneel,  and  we 
with  him,  while  he  spoke  at  last  and  uttered  the 
abundance  of  his  heart.  None  of  us,  not  the 
youngest,  had  ever  the  sense  that  he  was  moved  to 
do  so  as  our  confessor,  our  mentor,  conscious  of  a 
charge  and  a  responsibility  towards  us;  he  never 
prayed  because  it  was  good  for  us  to  hear  him.  He 
prayed  because  in  that  communion  he  contemplated 

227 


E ARLH AM 

beauty,  was  in  the  presence  of  the  summit  of  all 
desire — and  he  prayed,  forgetful  of  himself,  yet 
mindful  of  the  companionship  of  all  those  who  love 
and  believe  in  beauty.  I  so  express  it,  recalling  the 
memory  from  many  years  ago,  though  of  course 
these  are  not  the  words  he  would  have  used  himself ; 
I  speak  of  beauty  and  of  desire,  where  he  would  have 
spoken  of  God  and  of  the  soul's  repose  upon  her 
maker,  because  even  the  youngest  of  us  who  listened 
to  him  may  well  have  then  learned,  without  dis- 
covering the  knowledge  till  long  afterwards,  the 
manifest  oneness  of  all  the  objects  of  our  adoration. 
Our  grandfather,  I  see,  lived  daily  and  hourly  with 
the  perfection  of  beauty  in  his  mind  and  heart, 
like  a  poet — and  like  a  poet  whose  fire  is  never 
chilled.  He  knew  familiarly  the  lonely  raptures  of 
an  artist;  they  supported  him  always  and  every- 
where, not  only  in  the  few  fortunate  moments  that 
an  artist  has  mostly  to  be  contented  with. 

And  they  were  not  lonely,  what  is  more;  his  joy 
reached  outward,  into  the  world  around  him,  and 
grew  upon  the  sense  of  the  widening  commonalty 
of  the  faith.  It  was  in  the  trivial  businesses  of 
Ufe,  and  only  there,  that  he  might  seem  solitary, 
aloof  from  our  sociable  clatter;  it  was  not  so,  far 
from  it,  when  he  knelt  and  surrendered  himself 
to  the  vision  of  power  and  love.  There  was  nothing 
jealous,  nothing  secluded  or  remote,  in  the  spirit 
of  his  worship;  it  broadened  out  to  embrace  the 
company  of  all  the  faithful,  millions  strong,  who 
join  their  voices  in  thanksgiving.  There  are  many, 
I  suppose,  to  whom  the  act  of  adoration  is  always 
a  matter  of  the  innermost  chamber,  sealed  and 

228 


OUTSIDE  AND  BEYOND 

guarded,  deaf  and  blind  to  the  world  without; 
there  are  many  of  these,  not  poets  only,  but  saints 
in  all  ages.  And  really  I  could  believe  that  this 
is  the  one  fundamental  distinction  in  humanity,  the 
one  irresoluble  difference  between  soul  and  soul — 
that  some  of  us  adore  in  solitude,  some  in  the  con- 
gregation of  our  kind.  To  the  man  I  speak  of,  at 
any  rate,  the  fellowship  of  prayer  and  praise  was 
intensely  real,  profoundly  inspiring  and  uplifting; 
and  in  a  man  whose  outer  habit  was  so  quietly 
toned  and  subdued,  who  moved  through  the  world 
with  so  little  insistence  or  gesture  or  obtrusive 
demand — in  such  a  man  this  high  and  appealing 
accent  of  spiritual  brotherhood  was  memorably 
impressive,  I  know  well. 

12 

Sunday  morning  at  last — a  morning  not  unwel- 
come at  Earlham,  but  a  morning  that  always  began, 
I  fear,  with  trouble ;  for  one  is  met,  on  getting  out 
of  bed,  with  the  horror  of  "  clean  things,"  laid  out 
for  the  Sunday  toilet.  I  can't  describe  my  hostility 
towards  the  starched  and  crackling  tissues  in  which 
I  must  clothe  myself  on  Sunday;  and  as  for  the 
loathsome  clinging  and  tickling  of  clean  stockings, 
clean  underwear,  week  by  week  it  rouses  me  to  a 
passion  of  protest  that  I  can't  even  try  to  control. 
It  is  a  horrid  business ;  but  I  am  bound  to  say  the 
worst  is  soon  over,  and  it  is  easily  forgotten  before 
it  is  time  to  set  out  for  the  walk  to  church.  Every 
hour  at  Earlham  had  pleasing  peculiarities  on  Sun- 
day; for  example  after  prayers  (which  were  much 
shorter  than  usual)  came  the  question  of  the  hymns 

229 


EARLHAM 

for  morning  and  evening  service,  and  we  could  help 
grandmother  in  making  a  note  of  the  numbers 
chosen  and  of  the  tunes  to  which  they  were  to  be 
sung.  The  hymn  chosen  was  "  common  measure," 
she  said,  or  "  long  measure,"  and  this  tune  or  that 
(she  knew  them  by  name)  would  fit  it  rightly.  At 
Earlham  they  didn't  use  our  familiar  "  Ancient  and 
Modem,"  I  think  because  it  was  held  to  be  rather 
priestly  and  Roman ;  they  used  a  book  which  grand- 
mother referred  to  as  "  Bickersteth,"  and  if  the 
appointed  tunes  were  outside  our  range,  she  knew 
others  of  the  due  measure  that  met  the  case.  So 
that  was  settled,  and  by  half  past  ten  the  children 
were  ready  and  waiting  upon  the  cool  north  steps 
of  the  front  door. 

Earlham  in  the  morning,  Colney  in  the  evening, 
and  the  opposite  on  alternate  Sundays — that  was 
the  rule ;  and  the  morning  of  harvest  thanksgiving 
would  certainly  fall  on  the  turn  for  Earlham.  So 
the  walk  is  nothing,  merely  down  the  park  to  the 
end  of  the  drive ;  and  small  parties  of  the  household 
gradually  muster  and  set  forth  through  the  fresh- 
ness of  the  lime-avenue.  We  walked  decorously, 
feeling  very  new  and  clean,  hugging  our  prayer- 
books  ;  and  I  remember,  by  the  way,  how  amusing 
it  was  to  discover  that  the  neat  little  volume  carried 
by  one  of  our  uncles  was  really  a  small  French 
dictionary — he  couldn't  find  the  right  book,  he  had 
picked  another  of  appropriate  size  at  random.  It 
seemed  a  stroke  of  wit,  and  I  enjoyed  it ;  he  gravely 
folded  the  thing  under  his  arm  and  marched  down 
the  drive.  We  reached  the  road,  we  passed  into 
the  churchyard  and  up  the  path  to  the  porch ;  and 

230 


OUTSIDE  AND  BEYOND 

here  through  the  open  door  came  famihar  sounds 
from  within — so  famihar  that  they  bring  me 
suddenly  to  a  pause,  at  this  late  day,  as  they  come 
back  to  me  out  of  the  long  silence.  I  had  quite 
forgotten  that  grandmother  was  always  ahead  of  us 
on  these  occasions;  she  started  early,  she  was 
already  there  when  we  arrived — because  there  were 
a  few  minutes  of  choir-practice  before  the  service ; 
and  it  was  the  cheerful  noise  of  the  choir-practice 
that  now  pealed  out  to  meet  us.  I  had  strangely 
forgotten  it ;  but  the  exact  ring  of  the  voices,  with 
the  breathless  snatches  and  gusts  of  the  harmonium 
behind  them,  is  restored  to  me  again  as  I  mount 
the  churchyard-path  and  turn  in  at  the  door. 

Choir-practice,  we  called  it;  but  you  are  not  to 
picture  any  such  scene  as  the  word  suggests  to  you. 
There  were  no  vain  forms  and  shows  in  Earlham 
church,  no  pomp  of  little  boys  in  surplices,  nothing 
of  that  kind.  There  was  only  our  renowned  Eliza, 
with  the  remarkable  organ  of  her  voice — only  she 
and  two  or  three  lesser  lights  who  gathered  about 
her  in  the  gallery  under  the  tower;  that  was  all 
the  choir  there  was,  and  they  had  little  enough  to 
practice,  merely  two  or  three  old-established  hymn- 
tunes  out  of  "  Bickersteth."  But  they  sang  them 
over  before  the  service,  by  way  of  precaution,  and 
grandmother  took  her  place  in  the  gallery  and  added 
her  clear  voice  to  the  chorus.  She  was  supposed  to 
sit  in  the  chancel,  where  she  had  her  proper  place 
in  the  chief  comer,  just  within  the  old  wooden 
screen;  and  she  did  sit  there  sometimes,  when  all 
seemed  to  be  going  well  in  the  gallery  and  the  hymns 
were  well  supported.    But  she  ranged  as  she  would, 

231 


E ARLHAM 

and  this  morning  at  any  rate  her  help  would 
decidedly  be  needed  among  the  high  notes  of  "  We 
plough  the  fields  and  scatter  " ;  there  are  passages 
in  that  tune,  as  you  remember,  that  go  shooting  up 
to  a  pitch  where  most  of  our  voices  are  strangled  to  a 
very  thin  shriek.  "  He  sends  ther  snow  in  Win  Ter 
ther  warmth  ter  swell  ther  Grain  " — our  stream  of 
song  was  reduced  to  a  painful  thread,  compassing 
that  phrase ;  but  grandmother  soared  over  it  hke  a 
bird  and  dropped  softly  and  sweetly  to  the  lower 
levels  of  "  the  breezes  and  the  sunshine,"  where  the 
roar  of  the  congregation  swelled  out  again  in 
confidence. 

Nor  was  EUza  ever  known  to  quail  before  the 
steepest  ascent.  I  can't  say  that  she  flew  like  a 
bird,  but  she  strode  onward  and  upward  over  the 
boulders  of  the  melody  without  the  least  discom- 
posure, never  missing  her  step.  She  was  the  daugh- 
ter of  the  under-coachman,  conspicuous  in  the 
gallery  with  her  handsome  head  and  the  far-away 
shine  of  her  eyes ;  and  her  voice  was  a  marvel  that 
impressed  and  affected  me  intensely.  It  was  like 
a  polished  rod  of  song,  straight  and  smooth,  which 
she  seemed  to  carry  aloft  in  both  hands,  holding  it 
high  without  a  tremor;  and  wherever  we  cHmbed 
and  panted,  there  was  EHza  before  us,  full  in  view, 
with  the  gleaming  shaft  of  her  voice  to  point  the 
way.  She  was  always  in  her  place,  absolutely  to  be 
relied  on,  and  the  pleasant  little  gentleman  at  the 
harmonium  had  only  to  follow  her  lead.  He,  I 
think,  walked  out  from  Norwich  every  Sunday  to 
play  the  harmonium  at  the  two  services — a  little 
mild-eyed,  sandy-haired  gentleman,  gratefully  un- 

232 


OUTSIDE  AND  BEYOND 

assuming,  who  seems  to  belong  to  a  novel  of 
Dickens;  he  passed  the  interval  between  the 
services  up  at  the  Hall,  under  the  bountiful  pro- 
tection of  Mrs.  Chapman.  Such,  with  three  or  four 
vocalists  of  no  particular  note,  was  the  company 
that  assembled  in  the  gallery  to  practise  the  hymns, 
and  it  was  their  final  and  triumphant  assault  upon 
"  We  plough  the  fields  "  that  echoed  out  into  the 
churchyard  as  we  approached. 

Full  in  front  of  us,  on  our  entry,  was  the  font — 
the  font  with  the  diadem  of  pippins  and  marigolds 
that  we  had  designed  and  wrought  for  it  the  day 
before.  From  thence  the  eye  was  caught  to  the 
pumpkins  on  the  window-sills,  from  thence  again 
to  the  frills  of  ripe  wheat  and  dahlias  upon  the 
carving  of  the  screen,  to  the  enormous  bunch  of 
black  grapes  that  hung  from  its  middle  archway, 
and  so  forward  to  the  sheaves  of  corn  above  the 
communion-table.  The  effect  was  even  richer  than 
I  expected ;  we  had  laboured  well,  and  everybody 
was  struck  by  the  ingenuity  of  our  art.  The  whole 
church  was  filled  with  the  sweetness  of  apples, 
mellifluously  mingled  with  the  cool  smell  of  anti- 
quity that  belonged  to  the  building.  Our  pew  was 
in  the  chancel,  to  the  right ;  and  through  the  arcad- 
ing  of  the  screen,  as  through  a  window,  I  could 
survey  the  gathering  of  the  congregation.  Our  own 
household  bulked  large  in  it,  with  Mrs.  Chapman 
very  tight  and  trim  in  her  best ;  they  made  a 
familiar  island  among  the  village  faces.  It  didn't 
take  long  for  the  seats  to  fill,  and  by  this  time  a 
spirited  prelude  or  "  voluntary  "  (whatever  that 
may    be)    was    taxing    the    last    breath    of    the 

233 


EARLH AM 

harmonium.  The  Major  (whom  I  have  not  yet 
introduced)  took  his  place  with  dignity  in  the 
chancel-pew  opposite  to  ours,  and  we  were  ready 
to  begin. 

13 
'  It  was  like  nothing  else  that  I  have  ever  seen  or 
heard.  It  was  very  informal,  but  it  was  utterly 
dignified;  it  was  very  plain,  but  it  was  strangely 
poetic;  it  was  very  cheerful  and  brisk,  but  it  had 
none  of  that  resolute  good  humour,  that  hand- 
rubbing  hospitahty,  those  teeth-clenching  high 
spirits,  with  which  some  have  tried  to  soften  the 
shock  and  chill  of  unaccustomed  piety.  Grand- 
father towered  in  his  reading-desk  above  the  tiny 
assembly — not  screened  away  in  the  chancel,  but 
full  in  the  midst,  commanding  the  little  toy-nave 
of  the  church;  he  lifted  up  his  eyes  benignly  and 
mildly,  with  a  look  that  seemed  to  draw  his  flock 
after  him,  not  magisterially  directing  or  urging  it. 
He  welcomed  his  people  indeed,  but  he  carried  them 
above  the  level  of  common  and  personal  things — 
how  can  I  express  it? — he  addressed  them  as 
christian  souls;  and  he  arrogated  nothing  to 
himself,  no  priestly  right  of  dictation,  no  inquisi- 
torial claim — he  simply  showed  the  way  and  gazed 
forward  and  spoke  for  the  equal  company  that 
followed  him.  And  while  he  read  and  preached 
with  so  little  of  the  assumption  of  his  office,  he  was 
just  as  far  from  condescending  in  kindness  to  the 
simplicity  of  his  hearers ;  he  did  not  unbend,  he  did 
not  doff  his  dignity,  to  put  us  at  our  ease  and  make 
us  comfortable  after  the  strain  of  getting  to  church. 

234 


OUTSIDE  AND  BEYOND 

All  that  rubbish  was  unheard-of  at  Earlham; 
sincerity  was  simple,  simplicity  was  sincere,  in  the 
agreeable  scene  that  I  wish  I  could  describe  as 
clearly  as  I  now  behold  it. 

The  doors  stood  open,  the  windows  were  flung 
wide — grandmother  saw  to  that ;  the  southern  airs 
fluttered  in  over  our  heads,  where  we  sat  in  the 
chancel,  and  stirred  the  garlands  upon  the  screen. 
On  the  wall  opposite  to  me  was  a  tablet  with  a  long 
inscription,  of  the  eighteenth  century,  which  I  read 
and  re-read  and  knew  by  heart  from  the  earUest 
days ;  and  close  at  my  right  was  the  low  rail  of  the 
communion-table,  and  the  table  itself,  very  plain 
with  its  red  cloth  and  white  linen.  The  small  two- 
lighted  east  window  contained  the  only  painted 
glass  of  the  church;  it  had  been  set  there  by  our 
grandmother  to  the  memory  of  her  first  husband, 
dead  so  long  and  long  ago;  and  no  vain  images 
or  figures  appeared  in  it,  nothing  but  a  text  or  two, 
I  tlunk,  surrounded  by  thick-coloured  foliation. 
What  next  ?  Oddly  enough,  immediately  over  our 
heads,  there  was  a  big  tablet  on  the  wall  with  a 
long-winded  Latin  dedication  to  a  gentleman  of  our 
own  peculiar  name ;  and  what  is  more,  if  you  lifted 
the  mat  in  the  aisle,  just  below  the  chancel-step, 
you  discovered  a  stone  in  the  floor  with  the  legend 
"  Entrance  to  the  vault  of  Dr.  Lubbock  " ;  and  I 
never  knew  anything  of  these  old  kinsmen  of  ours, 
or  how  they  had  found  their  way  to  Earlham  church, 
but  as  kinsmen  I  claimed  them,  and  it  was  agreeable 
to  think  that  they  bound  us  to  the  place  with  yet 
another  tie.  Our  uncouth  name  is  indigenous  in 
Norfolk;  I  believe  it  is  to  be  found  on  village 

235 


E ARLH AM 

tomb-stones  in  many  churchyards  of  the  county; 
so  we  could  doubly  feel  that  we  were  returning  to 
our  own  when  we  came  again  among  the  winding 
waters  and  the  turnip-slopes  and  the  oak-shaded 
lanes  of  the  eastern  land.  And  in  Earlham  church 
the  very  bones  that  lay  mouldering  beneath  our  feet 
were  akin  to  us,  we  might  reasonably  think. 

I  cannot  tell  the  degree  of  our  cousinship  with 
Dr.  Lubbock  in  his  vault;  but  I  cling  to  him  the 
more  because  our  familiar  old  Gurneys  had  naturally 
left  no  traces  of  themselves  in  the  parish  church  at 
their  gates.  If  they  died  at  Earlham  they  were 
buried  at  "  Goat's  " — a  hard  price,  I  should  call  it, 
to  pay  for  the  privilege  of  enrolment  as  a  Friend, 
How  could  one  submit  to  burial  at  Goat's,  with  all 
the  poetry  of  Earlham  church  so  near  at  hand? 
The  Norwich  meeting-house  of  the  Friends  was  in 
Goat's  Lane,  and  the  young  Gurneys  in  their  purple 
and  scarlet  days,  dragged  thither  twice  every 
Sunday,  had  this  opprobrious  name  for  the  place. 
There  they  must  lie  at  last — there  or  in  some  other 
such  crude  and  nude  conventicle  of  their  faith — 
while  Dr.  Lubbock  might  rest  among  the  fore- 
fathers of  the  village,  mingling  his  dust  with  the 
ages.  A  few  of  our  Gurneys  did,  it  is  true,  lapse  into 
the  bosom  of  the  church  as  they  grew  older;  but 
none  of  them  fell  to  be  buried  or  commemorated 
at  Earlham — none  of  that  big  gay  family  over  whom 
Aunt  Catherine  had  presided  for  so  long.  Only  with 
the  generation  that  followed,  when  our  grandmother 
became  one  of  them,  did  they  begin  to  find  their 
rest  in  the  churchyard  of  the  village;  and  so  it 
was  that  their  name  was  missing  from  among  the 

236 


OUTSIDE  AND  BEYOND 

old  inscriptions  that  I  studied  upon  the  chancel- 
wall  and  learned  by  heart.  That  one  immediately 
opposite  me  was  very  queer  and  involved;  it 
related  to  a  member  of  the  Earlham  family  of 
prehistoric  and  pre-Gurney  days,  and  it  told  a  long 
story  about  the  burial  of  the  gentleman  elsewhere 
and  his  removal  when  the  church  was  demolished — 
such  a  confusing  rigmarole,  even  to  one  who  had 
spelt  it  out  again  and  again  with  eyes  that  peered 
through  locked  fingers,  his  head  bowed  in  the  atti- 
tude of  prayer. 

My  mind  has  been  wandering,  as  you  see;  I 
couldn't  stop  the  roving  of  my  gaze,  as  we  knelt  in 
our  pew,  though  my  face  was  decently  buried  in  my 
hands  and  only  a  chink  or  two  left  open  between  my 
fingers.  I  had  strayed  far  away  from  the  open  pages 
of  my  prayer-book,  which  lay  on  the  little  shelf 
between  my  elbows;  but  the  voice  of  our  grand- 
father recalls  me  as  soon  as  we  reach  the  antiphon 
of  versicle  and  response  in  which  we  take  our  part. 
There  was  a  curious  interest  in  this,  for  grandfather 
had  an  easy  way  of  his  own  with  the  more  formal 
parts  of  the  service.  He  took  them  at  a  swinging 
and  rhythmical  canter  that  always  pleased  me ;  he 
caught  us  up,  he  broke  into  the  soft  rumble  of  our 
responses  before  we  had  finished  them,  his  voice  was 
soaring  into  the  next  phrase  while  we  were  still 
busy  with  the  last.  I  particularly  liked  this  habit 
of  his  when  we  came  to  the  psalms ;  it  made  them 
fly  apace,  which  is  not  what  they  usually  do  when 
we  say  them  verse  by  verse,  in  the  form  of  a  dia- 
logue. In  general,  I  think,  the  minister's  share  in  the 
antiphon   is   unduly   drawn   out,   with   emphatic 

237 


EARLHAM 

intonations  that  we  cannot  imitate  in  our  many- 
voiced  response;  we  wait  too  long  for  our  turn, 
and  the  two  sides  of  the  dialogue  fall  away  from 
each  other  rather  awkwardly.  I  found  our  grand- 
father's manner  much  more  agreeable;  not  a 
moment  was  wasted,  the  psalm  was  reeled  through 
its  course  in  a  spirited  fashion,  and  from  a  plodding 
task  it  became  quite  an  exhilarating  outburst  of 
sound  and  movement.  It  seemed  perfectly  natural 
that  grandfather  should  hurry  us  forward  and 
anticipate  us  as  he  did;  that  was  his  manner,  his 
idiosyncrasy,  whether  he  was  reading  at  home  or  in 
church ;  he  had  no  dressed-up,  unwonted  style  that 
he  assumed  in  public.  His  church  was  a  fine  old 
room,  large  enough  for  the  gathering  of  the  village, 
consecrated  by  its  ancient  associations — so  he 
seemed  to  regard  it,  and  not  at  all  as  a  place  to  be 
essentially  more  reverenced,  more  formally 
honoured,  than  any  other  Christian  habitation. 
Wherever  we  met  for  prayer  was  honourable  ground, 
and  there  was  no  difference  that  he  cared  to  mark 
between  one  day  or  one  place  and  another. 

Our  Sunday  assembly  in  church,  therefore,  was 
just  like  our  daily  session  for  prayers  at  home; 
the  mood,  the  manner,  the  atmosphere  were  the 
same.  It  was  enough,  so  far  as  I  was  concerned,  to 
dissociate  Earlham  church  entirely  from  any  other 
place  of  worship  that  we  knew — and  there  were  two 
or  three  that  we  knew  extremely  weU.  It  is  remark- 
able to  find  yourself  sincerely  interested  and  pleased 
by  the  well-worn  round  of  Sunday  morning,  to 
walk  off  to  church  at  eleven  o'clock  with  a  gay 
hum  of  anticipation  in  your  mind;  I  never  had 

238 


OUTSIDE  AND  BEYOND 

such  an  experience  anywhere  else.  The  hour  in 
Earlham  church  was  actually  an  hour  of  life,  instead 
of  an  hour  in  which  you  wait  and  wait  for  life  to 
begin  again.  I  had  no  sense  of  being  left  out  of  the 
proceedings,  of  looking  on  with  a  cold  eye  at  an 
affair  that  didn't  belong  to  me;  it  was  a  family 
party  in  which  we  shared  alike,  one  and  all — simply 
because  our  grandfather  at  the  reading-desk,  our 
grandmother  in  the  gallery,  were  so  serenely  the 
same  as  they  were  at  home.  Grandfather's  serenity, 
however,  was  tried  and  troubled  one  Sunday  morn- 
ing, I  well  remember ;  I  can't  tell,  I  doubt  if  I  ever 
knew,  whether  I  really  witnessed  the  scene,  but  it  is 
perfectly  clear  in  my  memory.  He  was  in  the 
middle  of  his  sermon,  one  morning,  when  a  child 
in  the  gallery  was  seized  with  a  fit  of  coughing  and 
choking — which  it  couldn't  stop,  so  that  it  spluttered 
and  hawked  aloud,  worse  and  worse,  till  everybody's 
attention  was  disturbed  and  grandfather  was  forced 
to  intervene.  He  beckoned  from  the  pulpit  to  the 
child's  mother  and  called  out  to  her  to  take  the 
child  away.  You  can  imagine  the  little  scene,  the 
note  of  vexation  in  the  mild  voice  of  the  preacher, 
the  small  scuffle  of  mother  and  child  in  the  gallery. 
But  you  must  have  heard  it  to  hear  again,  as  I  do, 
the  clear  ring  of  grandmother's  quick  exclamation, 
her  cry  of  reassurance  to  our  grandfather — cheer- 
fully peaUng  across  the  church  from  the  gallery 
where  she  had  turned  to  help  the  embarrassed 
mother.  "  It's  all  right,  dear,"  she  cried,  looking 
round  from  her  ministration,  and  her  voice  flew 
brightly  across  the  hush  of  the  assembly;  "it's 
all  right  now — I've  given  him  a  lozenge."   That  was 

239 


E ARLH AM 

Earlham  church.  I  don't  beheve  I  was  there  at  the 
time,  after  all ;  but  it  matters  little,  I  am  certainly 
there  now. 


14 
The  lessons  were  read  by  the  Major.  He  sat  in 
the  chancel-pew  opposite  ours,  and  when  we  settled 
down  after  the  psalms  he  stood  in  his  place  and 
turned  to  the  congregation,  facing  it  through  one 
of  the  windows  of  the  screen.  He  rested  his  book 
upon  the  ledge  before  him  and  adjusted  his  eye- 
glasses so  that  they  gripped,  most  strangely,  the  tip 
of  his  well-bridged  nose.  He  was  very  old,  I 
supposed,  but  he  had  a  stately  port;  he  was  our 
neighbour  at  Earlham,  living  with  his  large  family 
hard  by  the  church.  He  wore  his  glasses  in  that 
interesting  fashion  so  that  he  could  look  through 
them  downward  upon  the  open  page,  without 
bending  his  head ;  he  read  the  lessons  in  measured 
and  sonorous  tones — and  for  me,  listening  to  him 
now,  the  lesson  is  always  the  same,  a  chapter 
inseparably  mingled  with  the  sound  of  his  voice. 
It  is  the  story  of  Ahab's  end,  the  battle  of  Ramoth- 
gilead ;  and  if  it  cannot  have  been  this  chapter  that 
fell  to  be  read  at  harvest  thanksgiving  in  September, 
it  is  this  and  no  other  that  the  Major  reads  when  I 
sit  and  watch  him  now,  wondering  still  at  the  odd 
balance  of  his  glasses.  It  was  their  firm  grip,  per- 
haps, that  gave  a  slightly  nasal  tone  to  his  reading. 
I  watched  and  listened  with  fascinated  attention — 
a  tribute  certainly  due  to  the  reader  himself  and  not 
to  the  far-off  story  of  the  battle,  which  only  found 

240 


OUTSIDE  AND  BEYOND 

its  way  into  my  mind  because  I  could  not  help 
hanging  absorbed  upon  the  Major's  utterance. 

"  So  the  king  of  Israel  and  Jehoshaphat  the  king 
of  Judah  went  up  to  Ramoth-gilead."  I  knew  the 
story  very  weU — at  least  I  knew  how  it  ran,  how  the 
phrases  followed  upon  each  other,  and  I  suppose  I 
had  a  picture  of  some  sort  in  my  mind.  But  what 
can  it  have  been?  If  it  was  a  picture  of  ancient 
kings  in  a  strange  land  it  must  have  drawn  me 
away  from  Earlham  church  on  a  Sunday  morning 
— away  from  the  presence  of  the  Major,  standing 
there  erect  in  his  corner,  facing  the  congregation 
with  eyes  downcast  upon  his  book.  "  But  the 
king  of  Syria  commanded  his  thirty  and  two  cap- 
tains that  had  rule  over  his  chariots  " — ^how  can 
a  child  have  listened  with  all  ears  to  the  words  and 
not  have  dropped  out  of  time,  out  of  the  moment, 
to  follow  the  story  through  the  heat  of  the  day  of 
battle  in  an  unknown  land?  It  is  a  battle  that 
rages  interminably  under  a  blazing  sky;  it  sways 
doubtfully — and  everything  hangs  upon  a  chance, 
a  bow  drawn  at  a  venture,  a  wounded  man  propped 
up  in  his  chariot  as  the  sun  goes  down ;  and  at  last 
the  whole  army  knows  what  has  happened,  the 
proclamation  runs  round,  the  king  of  Israel  is  dead. 
He  is  defeated,  he  is  dead  and  buried  in  Samaria, 
the  dogs  lick  his  blood  when  the  chariot  is  washed 
in  the  pool ;  but  he  had  been  a  great  king,  he  had 
made  an  ivory  house  and  built  cities  before  he  slept 
with  his  fathers.  The  story  is  soon  told,  and  Ahaziah 
his  son  reigns  in  his  stead ;  and  yet  it  is  as  long  as 
an  epic,  marching  slowly  and  spaciously  to  its  end. 
It   drives   a  rift   through  centuries   of   darkness, 

241  R 


EARLHAM 

showing  the  blaze  and  the  confusion  and  the  sudden 
hush  and  chill  of  bad  news  towards  evening — a 
flash  of  old  life  that  abolishes  time. 

It  is  a  long  way  from  Earlham  church,  you  might 
think.  A  saga  of  eastern  sheikhs,  mustering  their 
chariots  and  fighting  and  dying  beyond  Jordan,  a 
tale  of  vaulting  ambition  and  lying  pride  and 
insolence  drowned  in  blood — there  is  not  much 
here  to  remind  me  of  an  EngUsh  summer  morning, 
a  red-cushioned  chancel-pew  and  a  child  in  a  small 
white  suit  of  Sunday  clothes.  And  yet  it  is  only 
with  an  effort  that  I  can  now  read  that  story  for 
what  it  is,  for  the  merciless  old  saga,  putting  aside 
the  swarm  of  friendly  and  homely  memories  that 
rise  out  of  the  page ;  and  I  see  that  the  child  in  the 
starched  white  suit  had  never  the  least  difficulty 
in  reconciling  the  story  with  the  life  of  Earlham. 
The  battle  of  Ramoth-gilead  worked  in  quite 
naturally ;  the  tale  was  familiar,  it  belonged  to  the 
hour  and  it  came  to  life  again  in  the  Major's  evenly 
measured  tones;  Ahab  and  Jehoshaphat,  so  far 
from  carrying  me  into  the  distance  and  the  past, 
dropped  into  their  places  in  the  picture  that  included 
the  Major,  our  uncle  with  his  little  French  diction- 
ary, EUza  in  the  gallery,  the  whole  of  the  bare- 
headed or  neatly  bonneted  congregation  of  Earlham 
village.  There  they  all  are  together  to  this  day — the 
chronicles  of  Israel  have  had  strange  fortunes.  "  And 
Ahaziah  his  son — reigned  in  his  stead,"  declares 
the  Major,  sinking  his  voice  upon  the  words,  closing 
the  Bible,  removing  his  glasses.  We  all  rise,  I  seize 
my  open  prayer-book  and  mount  upon  my  footstool 
to  join  in  the  brisk  give-and-take  of  the  Te  Deum. 

242 


OUTSIDE  AND  BEYOND 


15 
On  our  last  Sunday  at  Earlham,  however,  the 
last  of  the  blissful  summer  holiday,  things  must  fall 
out  differently;  I  prefer  to  think  that  it  was  the 
turn  of  Earlham  church  in  the  evening.  That  is  the 
picture  I  should  wish  to  be  left  with  when  it  is  time 
to  depart;  and  the  time  is  upon  us,  the  richest 
of  the  summer  is  over,  the  twihght  begins  to  shut 
down  with  the  first  thin  chill  of  autumn.  We  should 
certainly  want  to  make  the  most  of  our  last  evening 
at  Earlham;  nothing  should  escape  us,  every 
moment  should  be  of  the  best.  Full  of  that  deter- 
mination I  can  loiter  once  more  in  the  lime-avenue 
after  tea,  feeling  the  change  that  has  come  about 
there  in  one  short  month,  the  last  of  the  summer.  A 
drift  of  brown  and  yellow  leaves  upon  the  path,  a 
damp  wanness  in  the  light  of  evening — one  hardly 
notices  the  detail  of  such  things,  but  they  make  all 
the  difference  to  the  mood  of  the  hour  and  they 
start  a  new  thrill  in  the  romance  of  Earlham.  Just 
here  and  now,  on  the  eve  of  departure,  you  can 
see  that  the  timeless,  changeless  Earlham  of  our 
few  summer  weeks  is  stirring  and  lapsing  with  the 
turn  of  the  year ;  its  life  is  proceeding,  it  begins  to 
face  toward  the  autumn  days  and  nights — and  I  had 
felt  till  now  that  its  Hfe  stood  still  and  that  its 
gorgeous  dream  of  high  summer  was  above  the 
chances  of  the  season.  It  is  oddly  moving  to 
discover  that  the  place  is  making  its  own  plans 
for  the  coming  months,  that  already  it  is  intent 
upon  things  that  will  happen  to  it  when  we  are 
gone.    We  have  no  part  in  its  cold  pale  autumn, 

243 


E ARLH AM 

and  I  might  have  forgotten  what  is  in  store  for  it ; 
but  on  our  last  evening  autumn  is  in  the  air, 
change  is  steahng  into  the  golden  ripeness  of  the 
garden. 

The  hours  that  were  thus  running  out  for  us  were 
keenly  savoured,  I  am  sure.  We  lingered  about  the 
lime-avenue,  we  strayed  down  the  path  towards  the 
village,  with  senses  alerter  than  ever  to  catch  the 
peculiar  voice  and  look  and  fragrance  of  the  place. 
We  demanded  that  everything  should  be  right, 
should  be  exactly  what  it  ought  to  be,  for  our  last 
day  of  Earlham — the  last  till  next  time.  It  was 
easy  to  make  sure  of  keeping  it  at  the  proper  pitch ; 
there  was  nothing  in  house  or  garden  or  park  that 
could  fail  to  reach  the  level  of  our  supreme  good  will. 
I  never  went  away  without  feeling  that  on  this 
particular  visit  I  had  acquired  rather  more  of 
Earlham,  more  of  its  rare  and  special  virtue,  than 
I  ever  had  before;  I  could  count  up  the  new  dis- 
coveries I  had  made  and  add  them  securely  to 
the  rest.  They  would  be  much  in  my  mind  as  the 
sun  sinks  on  our  last  evening,  and  I  almost  wonder 
that  I  am  not  more  dejected  by  the  thought  of  our 
imminent  departure.  But  the  fact  is  that  the  whole 
transaction  of  the  visit  to  Earlham  was  exquisite 
to  the  very  end,  the  end  was  even  as  good  as  the 
beginning.  There  was  a  certain  form  and  manner  of 
going  away  that  was  always  observed;  we  could 
rely  on  it  in  advance,  we  could  be  confident  that 
our  farewell  to  the  place  would  have  its  own 
accustomed  interest.  And  I  see  that  already  the 
thought  of  the  morrow  was  agreeably  exciting,  not 
depressing  in  the  least ;  so  that  we  rouse  the  pensive 

244 


OUTSIDE  AND  BEYOND 

stillness  and  limpness  of  the  September  evening  with 
a  heightened  bustle  of  enjoyment. 

A  journey  is  a  journey  after  all,  even  when  it 
takes  you  away  from  Earlham,  and  I  welcomed  a 
day  of  travel  for  its  own  sake.  Not  only  the  hours 
in  the  train,  good  as  they  were,  but  the  flutter  of 
preparation  at  one  end,  the  disorder  of  unpacking 
and  resettling  at  the  other — it  was  all  pleasure,  not 
a  minute  of  the  day  was  wasted.  Long  before  any 
one  else  the  children  would  be  ready  to  start ;  and 
the  only  trouble  was  the  slight  fret  of  anxiety,  I 
remember  it  well,  lest  the  elders  of  the  party  should 
take  things  too  easily  and  be  late.  They  always 
seemed  to  think  there  was  more  and  more  time  for 
last  words,  after-thoughts,  sudden  searches  for 
things  overlooked — when  we  knew  we  ought  to  be 
off  to  catch  the  train.  But  there  would  still  be 
plenty  of  time  in  hand  when  the  children  began  to 
hover  about  the  front  door,  hatted  and  booted, 
clasping  some  very  particular  object  apiece  that 
was  too  precious  to  be  packed.  There  was  ample 
time  for  a  last  dash  into  the  garden,  a  visit  to  the 
sulkies  or  the  weeping  ash ;  yet  as  soon  as  we  were 
out  of  the  house  there  seemed  to  be  no  time  at  all, 
and  I  never  was  proof  against  the  panic  that  sends 
one  scurrying  indoors  again  at  a  gallop — to  find 
that  the  hand  of  the  hall-clock  is  still  almost 
exactly  where  it  was,  half  an  hour  to  the  time  of 
departure.  But  then  came  a  very  interesting 
episode.  As  we  sit  in  the  hall,  on  the  big  red  seat 
by  the  gong,  I  see  the  study-door  open  and  grand- 
father appear  on  the  threshold ;  and  with  a  humor- 
ous and  mysterious  look  he  beckons  to  us,  silently 

245 


E  A  K%  HAM 

makes  a  little  knowing  sign  which  brings  us  quickly 
across  the  floor  and  into  his  room.  There  the  sun 
falls  as  usual  upon  the  rows  and  rows  of  old  books, 
the  faded  tawny-brown  of  the  chair-covers,  the  one 
rose  and  one  orchid  in  their  slim  glasses  on  the 
writing-table;  and  we  blink  up  at  grandfather 
while  he  twinkles  from  his  great  height  and  displays 
a  pinch  of  something  held  between  his  finger  and 
thumb.  He  slips  it  into  the  keeping  of  the  children, 
share  and  share  alike,  as  though  it  were  a  great 
secret  between  us  all,  and  we  babble  our  gratitude 
as  well  as  we  may.  I  always  wished  I  could  meet 
that  occasion,  so  often  repeated,  with  less  inco- 
herence; for  to  have  money  in  one's  pocket  is  a 
sensation  that-  glorifies  life,  and  it  is  hard  to  be 
struck  sheepish  and  awkward  just  as  the  prospect 
opens  so  rosily.  I  bungled  my  thanks  as  usual — 
but  I  dare  say  they  showed  plainly  enough,  while 
I  gaped  at  the  difference  that  grandfather  had  made 
in  my  outlook  upon  the  world. 

Then  there  was  good-bye  to  be  said  to  all  the 
members  of  the  household ;  most  important  of  all, 
there  was  our  last  morning- visit  to  be  paid  to  that 
attic-room  at  the  top  of  the  house,  where  our  perfect 
old  friend  sat  always  patient  and  ready  with  her 
love  and  welcome.  We  made  our  farewell  to  her 
and  she  smiled  tenderly — but  these  partings  cost 
her  a  few  tears,  and  we  left  her  sitting  in  her  high- 
backed  arm-chair,  among  her  innumerable  relics  and 
keepsakes,  beaming  her  blessing  on  us  with  speech- 
less, shining  looks.  We  knew  that  presently  she 
would  insist  on  being  helped  into  the  passage  out- 
side her  room,  where  there  was  a  window  that 

246 


OUTSIDE  AND  BEYOND 

overlooked  the  carriage-drive;  she  would  be  there 
for  the  moment  of  our  departure,  to  wave  a  hand- 
kerchief as  we  drove  away — she  never  failed.  So 
we  dashed  downstairs  again,  the  time  now  growing 
really  short,  and  fled  to  the  kitchen  for  a  final  gay 
exchange  of  good  wishes  with  Mrs.  Chapman — and 
up  to  the  nursery  once  more,  for  tempestuous 
embraces  of  all  our  fond  friends  in  order;  and  so 
yet  again  to  the  hall  and  the  steps  of  the  front-door, 
still  with  some  minutes  to  wait,  after  all,  till  the 
carriage  came  sweeping  round  from  the  stables  and 
Sidell  pounded  the  gong  and  at  last  it  was  abso- 
lutely the  moment  to  be  off.  Grandmother  would 
be  driving  to  the  train  with  us,  but  grandfather 
stood  in  the  great  doorway,  benevolently  watching 
and  smiling  while  Sidell  packed  us  all  into  the 
carriage;  and  Patrick  touched  up  the  horses  and 
the  gravel  crunched  under  our  wheels  and  we  craned 
about  to  answer  the  farewells  thrown  to  us  from  the 
windows  above — and  sure  enough  there  was  a  white 
handkerchief  at  the  window  of  the  top  passage,  high 
over  all,  which  was  the  last  we  saw  as  we  turned  the 
corner  and  passed  under  the  horse-chestnuts  and 
up  the  drive  towards  the  Norwich  road.  And  only 
when  we  were  out  in  the  road  and  well  on  our 
journey  came  the  exclamation  of  dismay  (it  always 
came  in  due  course)  from  somebody  of  our  party, 

"  There  now,  I  forgot "  whatever  it  may  have 

been,  something  of  much  importance;  but  it  was 
too  late  to  turn  back,  Earlham  was  far  behind  us 
already,  our  faces  were  set  to  the  outer  world. 

You  see,  then,  how  all  this  stir  and  flutter  of  life, 
in  prospect  for  the  morrow,  might  affect  us  on  our 

247 


EARLHAM 

last  evening  at  Earlham;  it  was  like  a  freshening 
undertow  beneath  the  stream  of  the  smooth  sweet 
hours.  Bright  as  had  been  our  weeks  at  Earlham, 
there  was  no  melancholy  over  their  end ;  there  was 
only  a  Uveher  desire  to  cram  the  hours  as  fuU  as 
they  would  hold,  admitting  nothing  but  the  best. 
And  if  it  should  chance  that  this  last  evening  was  a 
Sunday,  on  the  verge  between  summer  and  autumn, 
nothing  could  be  better  than  the  scene  and  the 
impression  that  I  find  there  in  the  natural  course, 
full  in  my  path.  Sunday  evening,  the  pale  light  of 
the  changing  year,  the  stir  of  impending  departure — 
it  all  brings  me  straight  to  the  last  of  my  pictures  of 
memory,  and  this  is  one  that  crowns  our  long 
hoHday  to  perfection.  We  had  by  now  the  sense 
of  having  Uved  with  Earlham  in  deepest  intimacy 
for  an  age;  and  yet  there  were  always  new  dis- 
coveries to  make  in  the  regular  round  of  the  day, 
and  we  should  prefer  to  keep  jealously  within  it 
as  the  end  approached.  Nothing  far-fetched  or 
unhkely,  but  whatever  most  strictly  belonged  to  the 
hour  and  the  place,  charged  with  the  character  of 
Earlham — this  we  desired;  and  my  last  picture  is 
exactly  the  right  one  for  our  need.  I  find  it  before 
me,  again  in  Earlham  church. 

i6 
By  sundown  the  dusk  was  already  grey  in  the 
body  of  the  church,  though  up  in  the  gallery  there 
was  still  a  flush  and  haze  of  warmth  from  the  small 
west  window  of  the  tower.  In  the  little  north 
transept,  in  the  chancel  behind  the  dark  carved 
screen,  the  shade  deepened  quickly ;  it  began  to  be 

248 


OUTSIDE  AND  BEYOND 

difficult  to  read  one's  book  even  before  the  psalms 
were  at  an  end.  No  lamps  were  lit — there  were 
none,  I  think ;  and  perhaps  this  Sunday  evening  was 
reckoned  as  the  last  of  the  summer,  and  grand- 
father would  announce  that  next  week  the  hour  of 
evening  prayer  must  be  shifted  to  the  afternoon. 
I  forget  about  that;  but  certainly  the  hurrying 
dusk  of  September  overtook  us;  and  only  a  few 
candles,  a  pair  for  the  reading-desk,  a  pair  for  the 
Major,  were  lit  when  they  were  required,  and  their 
ghmmering  spots  of  hght  were  all  our  illumination. 
The  day  held  long  enough  for  our  needs,  however, 
and  we  could  lay  aside  our  books  in  the  twihght 
when  grandfather  mounted  to  the  pulpit.  Our 
particular  comer  of  the  chancel  grew  strange  and 
solemn ;  it  was  a  different  place  entirely  from  the 
cheerful  and  sociable  enclosure  where  one  studied 
the  epitaphs  in  the  morning.  It  was  now  fuU  of 
awe — but  of  awe  that  in  no  way  dismayed  or 
oppressed,  that  rather  sustained  and  encouraged  a 
young  spirit  in  its  wordless  answer  to  something 
larger  than  itself. 

Our  grandfather  stood  aloft  in  the  pulpit,  ghostly- 
white  with  his  big  surphce,  remote  and  unfamiliar 
in  the  ebbing  day.  For  us  in  the  chancel  the  shine 
of  the  candle  at  his  side  outHned  his  clear  profile — 
and  his  voice  seemed  to  rise  out  of  far-away  dis- 
tances, traveUing  through  the  falling  night  and 
reaching  us  across  dim  spaces  where  sight  was  lost. 
He  was  alone,  up  there  in  the  candlelight ;  and  the 
congregation,  all  motionless  in  the  grey  silence 
beneath  him,  left  his  sohtude  untouched.  One 
hstened  to  his  voice,  knowing  and  following  exactly 

249 


EARLH AM 

the  curve  of  the  well-known  cadences;  and  yet  it 
was  strange,  it  was  a  voice  from  another  sphere, 
and  he  himself,  what  with  the  glimmer  and  the 
shadow  and  the  stillness,  was  changed,  transfigured, 
exalted — one  might  never  have  seen  him  before. 
His  preaching  was  like  an  appezd,  an  invocation 
that  soared  into  the  kindly  night ;  and  the  thought 
that  he  uttered  was  as  free  and  serene  and  unearthly 
as  the  night  itself.  God  is  a  spirit — not  a  word  that 
was  spoken  fell  below  that  level  of  high  imagination ; 
the  low  earth  of  human  Httleness  was  left  behind 
and  forgotten.  There  was  nothing  in  it  all  that  a 
child  might  be  supposed  to  understand;  and  a 
child  accordingly,  hstening  in  a  dream,  scarcely 
heeding  or  apprehending  a  word,  was  brought 
without  a  check  into  the  presence  of  a  mind  that 
could  worship  in  spirit  and  in  truth. 

The  sermon  was  long ;  but  one  forgets  the  weight 
of  time  in  that  twilit  dream,  floating  upon  space. 
Our  grandfather  preached  without  book  or  paper, 
and  as  his  theme  rose  he  too,  I  think,  forgot  the 
hour  and  was  lost  in  the  fervour  of  his  vision.  It 
was  really  as  though  he  saw,  as  though  he  could 
catch  a  ghmpse  of  a  heaven  that  opened — and  he 
broke  out  with  an  uncontrollable  cry  of  admiration, 
pointing  to  the  sight  that  brought  heahng  to  the 
world.  Again  and  again  it  rang  out ;  the  revelation 
of  hope  was  there,  was  suddenly  before  us  for  all  to 
see — look,  look  and  behold  the  promise  fulfilled. 
He  used  no  deliberate  phrases ;  the  word  that  leaps 
to  the  mouth  is  the  only  possible  word,  the  only 
expressive,  when  the  vision  vouchsafed  is  always 
beyond  expectation,  rarer  and  lovelier  than  thought 

250 


OUTSIDE  AND  BEYOND 

could  foresee.  Again  and  again  he  called  upon  us 
to  share  the  wonder ;  and  when  he  so  called,  it  was 
not  that  he  exhorted  or  adjured  a  faithless  flock, 
crying  out  upon  their  blindness — there  never  was 
the  least  note  of  prophetic  pride  or  indignation  in 
his  voice.  Humbly  marvelling  before  the  throne, 
joyful  and  thankful,  he  spoke  of  what  he  saw ;  and 
though  he  spoke  as  one  rapt  to  beatific  heights,  he 
had  always  a  mild  gravity  of  tone,  he  was  simple 
and  serious  with  the  clarity  of  a  fine  understanding. 
A  child  who  dreamily  watched  and  listened  to  him, 
drinking  in  the  impression,  knew  only  that  an 
evening  hour  in  Earlham  church  was  unlike  any 
other  in  life.  But  the  quality  of  the  hour,  the  taste 
of  its  beauty,  was  just  as  distinct  to  the  child  as  to 
any  of  that  company;  only  the  words  to  define  it 
were  wanting — if  indeed  they  are  not  wanting  as 
much  as  ever,  even  now. 

Our  grandmother,  meanwhile,  was  beside  us  in 
our  dim  corner  of  the  chancel;  she  sat  in  her 
rightful  place,  close  against  the  ancient  oak  screen — 
she  slipped  back  to  it  as  soon  as  the  hymn  had  been 
sung  and  our  grandfather  crossed  over  to  the  pulpit ; 
and  she  sat  there  now,  happy  and  quiet  in  the 
exaltation  of  her  thought,  with  a  look  and  touch 
of  tenderness  for  the  children  at  her  side.  She  too 
listened  absorbed,  and  her  eyes  were  lifted  in  a  gaze 
that  travelled  away,  above  and  beyond — away  to 
the  past  of  many  memories,  forward  to  the  new 
morning  and  the  reward  of  hope.  The  words  of 
the  preacher  dropped  into  her  mind ;  she  took  them, 
she  made  them  her  own,  with  a  gentle  movement  of 
her  head  or  the  breathing  of  a  sigh ;  the  stir  of  her 

251 


E ARLH AM 

emotion  was  in  the  soft  touch  of  her  hand,  as  it 
rested  upon  the  child's  hand  in  her  lap.  Half 
smiling,  half  weeping  out  of  a  full  heart,  she  raised 
her  face  to  the  light  that  shone  for  her  in  the  gather- 
ing darkness;  she  welcomed  it  with  all  the  eager 
faith  of  her  being.  The  barriers  that  are  about  us 
in  the  world,  separating  soul  from  soul,  seemed  to 
be  as  nothing;  and  even  the  chasm  that  encircles 
our  small  humanity,  that  isolates  it  in  the  midst 
of  the  illimitable  unknown,  had  vanished  for  an 
hour — freely,  freely  our  imprisoned  thought  could 
escape  to  the  truth  beyond  the  stars.  It  seemed  so, 
there  in  the  little  shadowy  church,  while  the  few 
scattered  candles  burnt  brighter  and  whiter  in  the 
gloom  and  the  voice  of  the  preacher  sank  gradually 
to  a  hushed  undertone,  almost  a  whisper.  The  last 
words  were  very  quietly  and  intently  breathed; 
they  hung  and  fell  in  the  silence  as  lightly  as  a 
falling  leaf — another  and  another,  more  softly  still, 
and  yet  another,  and  it  was  the  end.  Stirring  at 
length  and  looking  about  us,  we  found  that  only  the 
very  last  of  the  twihght  was  left  in  the  windows, 
the  night  of  autumn  had  all  but  closed  us  in. 

There  was  still  another  hymn  to  be  sung  before 
we  dispersed ;  but  our  books  were  quite  useless  now, 
and  we  waited  while  grandfather  found  the  place 
by  the  light  of  his  candle  and  read  out  to  us  the 
words  of  the  first  verse.  He  read  them  through,  and 
then  the  harmonium  broke  forth  and  we  sang  the 
verse,  all  the  congregation  joining  their  voices  with 
fervent  will.  We  paused,  and  grandfather  read  the 
second  verse;  we  took  it  up  again,  holding  the 
words  in  mind  as  well  as  we  could — and  so  on  to 

252 


OUTSIDE  AND  BEYOND 

the  end.  But  indeed  the  words  were  most  famiHar, 
and  in  the  evening  and  the  gloom  one  sings  more 
confidently  than  in  the  morning  light ;  so  that  the 
successive  verses  of  our  hymn  rolled  out  very 
heartily  and  everybody  contributed  his  part.  The 
children  sang  their  loudest,  Eliza  lifted  up  her 
pillar  of  song  in  the  gallery,  a  rich  rumble  of  manly 
thunder  arose  from  the  village  in  the  nave.  We  all 
felt  a  need  of  singing;  in  one  way  or  another, 
clearly  or  obscurely,  we  had  seen  and  known  our 
portion  in  a  high  experience,  an  enhancement  of 
power  within,  a  disclosure  of  far  distances;  and  a 
full  tide  of  emotion  was  released,  warm  and  buoyant, 
in  the  measured  swing  of  the  melody.  But  none  of 
us  sang  as  our  grandmother  sang — for  the  music 
she  uttered,  lightly  throwing  up  her  head,  was  alive 
with  every  thrill  of  her  heart,  it  caught  the  very 
sparkle  and  shimmer  of  her  loving,  longing,  adoring 
spirit.  The  words  of  the  hymn  were  new  upon  her 
lips,  so  deep  and  sweet  was  the  meaning  with  which 
she  filled  them ;  they  seemed  to  be  stirred,  dignified, 
enlarged  with  all  the  sorrows  and  joys  of  a  saintly 
life,  that  now  was  turning  home  towards  the  evening 
of  its  day.  There  was  a  passion  of  tenderness  in  her 
singing,  there  was  thanksgiving  and  triumph;  it 
was  the  voice  of  Christiana,  stepping  gladly  down 
the  last  slope  of  the  hill  to  the  crossing  of  the  river. 
"  Thy  touch  hath  still  its  ancient  power — no  word 
from  Thee  can  fruitless  fall."  Grandfather  gave 
out  the  last  lines  of  the  hymn,  closed  his  book,  stood 
silent  in  the  candlelight,  while  we  threw  ourselves 
once  more  into  the  music  and  swept  to  the  chmax. 
Our  rhythm  was  broad  and  unhurried,  our  volume 

253 


E ARLH AM 

of  sound  moved  steadily  from  beat  to  beat  of  the 
tune,  mounting  and  descending.  The  few  moments 
are  enough  for  a  long  look,  a  glance  that  pierces  the 
dimness  and  travels  to  and  fro  across  the  tiny  church 
and  seeks  and  finds — finds  all  that  I  have  tried  to 
speak  of,  all  the  images  of  memory  that  people  the 
vision  of  our  Earlham.  It  is  a  last  look,  and  it 
fastens  closely  upon  every  hght  and  shadow  of  the 
scene,  scanning  the  rows  of  faces,  passing  between 
them  to  the  more  distant  ghosts  of  the  past,  re- 
covering the  whole  treasure  of  association  that 
Earlham  in  its  old  age  had  amassed  for  its  children. 
It  was  all  there  for  the  eyes  that  could  see — all  there 
in  a  moment  of  falling  night,  in  the  white  shine  of  a 
few  candle-flames,  in  a  chorus  of  voices  that  hung 
upon  the  notes  of  a  tune.  Slowly,  with  gathering 
fervour,  the  voices  lifted  and  rang  out  in  the  last 
words;  and  grandfather  stood  silent  and  tall,  his 
head  bowed,  waiting  for  the  close.  "  Hear,  in  this 
solemn  evening  hour — and  in  Thy  mercy  heal  us 
aU." 


254 


LONDON  :  CHARLES  WHITTINGHAM  AND  GRIGGS  (PRINTERS),  LTD. 
CHISWICK  PRESS,  TOOKS  COURT,  CHANCERY  LANE. 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY,  LOS  ANGELES 

COLLEGE  LIBRARY 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


Book  Slip-35»n-7,'63(D8634s4)4:280 


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UCLA-College  Ubrary 

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